


Life of the Mind

by greenasphodel



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Adorkable, Alternate Ending, Awkward Flirting, Awkward Romance, Endings, F/M, Meet-Cute, Philosophy, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-24
Updated: 2016-11-11
Packaged: 2017-12-21 05:13:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/896200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenasphodel/pseuds/greenasphodel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Camille found him at the grocers one day, and he was the most intriguing, impossible man she had ever met.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Off the Beaten Track

**Chapter 1**

**Off the Beaten Track**

_Martin Heidegger once said: ‘To enter upon this path is the strength, and to remain on it the feast of thought.’_

Camille was rather alarmed to find that the guy for whom she had been scripting the perfect pickup line had gone missing.

She found him at the grocers.  She had developed a habit of going there at the odd hour of eight thirty in the evening after she took a wrong turn and discovered this shop on the way home from work.  At any normal hour, there would have been a hoard of stampeding people, as this was in the busiest part of town.  However, few came at a half hour before store closing, as all the freshest produces were gone, and the light was dimming outside as well.  Camille had no choice in the matter, however, since she rarely left work early enough to make it to the grocers to begin with.  Being an aspiring lawyer really was not as glamorous a job as TV shows made it to be.  She did try her best to make it here every day though.  Not because she needed a daily infusion of arugula and instant noodles, but because one of the most interesting people she had ever come across came here at this hour.

He had hair close to being caramel but not quite there yet, holding a loose wave, and slightly longer than how most men wore it.  He had a haircut sometimes last week, though.  He intermittently wore glasses—the ones with a thick black rim at the top of the glass panels, the kind that Camille remembered seeing on her college professors.  He always wore a tie, usually skinny.  She had never looked into his eyes long enough to figure out each speck of pigment, but they were a nice, warm chestnut color.  He shaved meticulously, so that even by eight thirty at night there was still no hint of a shadow spanning across his cheeks.  His chin turned upwards ever so slightly, giving him an adorable small bump at the base of his face.  He was lanky in figure, tall, but not intimidatingly so.  He had a funny walk, with more pressure on his left foot, perhaps as a result of the weight of his messenger bag on his right shoulder, but he moved briskly and with purpose.  He had a habit of scanning everything with words on it, be it a sticker, a poster, an ad, or the ingredients table.  He fidgeted with his watch while he waited in line, which he wore over his sleeve.

As you might be able to tell, Camille had observed this man very closely.  She thought it might be borderline creepy, but decided that it was a rather harmless sort of stalking if one would even call it that. 

Camille had found him on a dreary Wednesday two weeks ago, looking in the same aisle for frozen food.  She had entered the aisle with a list of the necessities of life on her phone—consisting mainly of waffles and pre-cooked packages—and behold, there he stood, holding the door open in front of the pizza section.  He had on a small frown as he browsed the boxes and perhaps tried to decide if the sausage one would taste better than the four-cheese blend one.  His left hand reached up to push his glasses a little higher on that thin, cleanly sculpted bridge of a nose, and the hair fell into his eyes ever so slightly, and the corners of his mouth stretched downwards subconsciously—and Camille felt her heart stretch out a little in response.

She didn’t really eat pizza, but that wasn’t going to stop her.

Camille smoothed out her hair (she was glad she visited the saloon to touchup her apricot blonde dye job), half wished that she had not changed out of her work heels into flats, and soldiered on to pick out some pizza.

She reached for a rather strange box of anchovies pizza (anchovies!), and was about to ask the man for a recommendation when he suddenly spoke.

“Anchovies, that’s the least favorite topping in America, although in Russia, they serve pizza with mockba, a combination of sardines, tuna, mackerel, salmon, and onions.  Did you know that Americans consume two hundred fifty one billion seven hundred seventy thousand pounds of pepperoni as toppings per year.”

Camille was too surprised to react, and in her bewildered pause, the man smiled sheepishly—his lips thinned a little and curved perfectly and oh wait he was saying something—

“…  Carried away, sorry,” and left hurriedly.

The ‘Wait’ was resting on her lips, but she couldn’t speak them, and Camille watched the glorious man walk away.  If she had not been enchanted by his face and figure, then she certainly was by this awkward display of knowledge and misplaced friendliness. 

Camille’s best friend in college always said she went for the weird ones.

To fulfill her friend’s prophecy, Camille threw the anchovies pizza into her basket, and walked stealthily after him, feasting her eyes on scalloping waves of hair and the movements of his limbs in a casual tweed blazer.  She felt like it would be strange to catch up and start a conversation though, so when he paid and left the store, she stayed to pick out the groceries that she actually came here for.

But she saw him again the day afterwards.  And the day after that.  In fact, she saw him every day that she came (which was every day except the two times that she really could not bring the work back home with her).

Then all of the sudden, he disappeared.

It had been a full two weeks since she last saw him, and Camille was starting to get worried.  Perhaps he got into some sort of trouble?  Or what if he had an accident and was in the hospital?  Or—the worst of the worst—he had moved?  She could file a missing persons report, but she doubted the police would take her very seriously.  (It had been two weeks, and one definitely needed stocking up on pizza after two weeks.)

She didn’t even know his name.

What she did know, however, was that this man came at the precise half-hour for two whole weeks, and he wouldn’t have just _stopped_ for no reason.  No, she couldn’t accept that.  There must be some horrid reason, some unspeakable tragedy that pulled him away and kept him there.  Why else would such a man simply break out of what seemed like a long-term habit?  He seemed like a man of routine too, and while his face held enough paleness and eye-bags that he could have passed for a junkie, but he was too smartly dressed for that.  Also too cute, but that was a subjective judgment on Camille’s part.

So it was with great relief that Camille came on the next Tuesday and found him back in the pizza aisle again, right where he belonged.

Camille gave a happy little sigh, checked her hair, and tucked her purse high on her shoulder.  As she walked towards him, he gave her a sort of smile, his eyes darting quickly away, as if he wasn’t quite sure if he should greet her or pretend she was air like people did to most strangers.

When she approached though, he took a step back, still holding the fridge door open, and motioned for her pick out before him.

Camille wanted to give a little squeal—when was the last time that she was treated so courteously?  All the men at work treated her like a man, which was nice, of course, especially given that it was a male-dominated industry.  However, being a ‘bro’ meant that the heaviest door in the front was hers and hers alone to open, putting all her weight against it to heave and breathing like a working animal.  It also meant that she never got to the cafeteria fast enough to get any crab cakes, on the rare occasion they were offered.  She had dyed her hair in order to remind herself of her femininity, which seemed to her a somewhat ridiculous yet sadly necessary thing to do.

She pulled her wandering mind back, smiling at the man with more warmth than recommended towards a stranger, and picked out another anchovy pizza.

After taking the pizza box, she lingered at the fridge.  Camille quickly racked her brain to think of some line, any of the lines that she played in her head after meeting him, but discovered that her mind was an endless plain of blankness.

The man, who was reaching for the sausages pizza, noticed her presence and turned towards her. 

Their eyes met, and they spoke simultaneously.

“Do you have the time?”  She asked.

“Who are you?”  He asked.

There was a pause in which both blushed slightly, painfully self-aware.  It was a pause just long enough for the man to readjust his watch over his sleeve, and for Camille to unconsciously go through the ends of her hair.  Then they both spoke again, at once.

“I’m sorry?” she began.

“Eight thirty nine,” he answered.

Another pause, in which both realized that they had spoken over the other person yet again, and the situation had turned from awkward to ever so slightly comical.

“I’m Camille,” she answered now.  Then as an afterthought, “Thanks.”

“Camille, that’s a nice name, like the movie by George Cukor.”

“But,” she replied, “I was named after the play showing in Broadway back in the day, adapted from the Dumas fils novel.”

“Yes,” he nodded, “The movie is based on _La Dame aux camélias_ as well, except in the movie she is called Dame Camille.  It released on December twelfth in 1936.  The flower camellia is actually mostly found from the Himalayas east to Indonesia.  Did you know that the Chinese and Japanese courts bred it for centuries before it ever came to Europe?  It's called the tea flower in Chinese for the leaves of the camellia sinensis is actually used to brew tea.  Strangely enough it’s also the state flower for Alabama.”

“Oh.”

A beat.

“I-I’m sorry, this is the second time that I’ve bothered you with trivial facts,” he looked away and examined the flooring.

“Oh don’t be, please.  I found what you said to be fascinating.”

“You do?”  He looked backed at her with such a surprised and excited look in his eyes that Camille just wanted for him to speak for seven days and her to listen by his side.

“Of course, it’s not every day that somebody tells me something about my namesake that I didn’t know,” she smiled in what she hoped was an encouraging manner.  The man was such a rare blend of goodwill and social awkwardness that she found it endearing.  His vast knowledge of pizza toppings and plant genera also helped.  Oh, and his hair, Camille loved his hair.

“I’m glad I could do the service,” he replied rather formally, still somewhat self-conscious. 

Camille got the impression that this didn’t happen to him very often.  So to cover up his discomfort, she said the first thing that came to her mind, “My parents named me, big Dumas fans.  I don’t even know if they ever watched that movie.  The things that one is never able to learn about one’s parents.”

“I’m sorry.”

She blinked at him, “About what?”

“Your parents.”

“My parents?  Why?”

“Er,” he looked ill at ease now, “You just said that…you parents are alive and well?”

“Yes,” what a bizarre question!  “They’re actually touring Europe right now.”

“I assumed that being unable to learn your parent’s movie experience meant that they had passed away; I shouldn’t have presumed.”

“It’s not a problem.”

“No it is, you showed no tension at the mention of your parents, I should have picked that up.” He seemed genuinely upset over such a small, stranger mistake.

“You’re being too harsh on yourself, nobody can read minds—at least I hope not.”

Her pathetic attempt to liven the mood flopped as he frowned deeper and said, “No, I’m not.  It’s a part of my job, and I do have a degree in psychology.  I was just too nervous.”

A degree in psychology?  Perhaps he was an assistant professor, or a psychiatrist?  He did not have the look of a psychiatrist to him—beige walls, beige floors, fish tank, soothing decorations—but he did fit the professor stereotype quite well.  Camille approved of academic people.  That wasn’t the most important thing he said, however.  “Nervous, you say?  About what though?”

“Well,” he blushed.  Camille found it undeservedly adorable.  “I had been trying to ask your name for a while now.”

Oh wow, Camille thought, this was a lot easier than she thought it would be.  So she smiled prettily and asked, “My name?  Well perhaps I should start wearing camellias flowers in my hair so that people would know.”

“That would only make yourself even more obvious.”

‘Obvious’ was such an odd choice of diction.  Camille looked at him and waited for an explanation.

“What I mean is, I would have picked up on you following me around sooner if you had done that.”

“What,” she gasped out in horror.

“Right, I had been wondering why you were following me.”

Oh god, oh god oh _god_ , he knew, he noticed, oh god Camille wanted to bury herself up in a grave of sand and bones.  Of course he wasn't asking for her name for the same reason that she wanted to know his.  Of course the first time that she actually tried to pick up a guy, he saw her as a stalker.  Of course.  She couldn’t remember the last time she was so mortified.

Something about her must have told him about her embarrassment, because the next moment he got a little flustered as well, “I didn’t mean to offend—I mean, I’m just very bad at talking to people that I don’t know.”

“Not at all,” she replied weakly. 

“Yes I am, and you _are_ offended.  The rims of your eyes have widened by half a millimeter, the muscles in your jaw are tightened, and not to mention you do have a very telling blush going there.”

Camille couldn’t help but smile.  “Was that a joke?”

“It got you to smile, so I say yes.”

Perhaps all was not lost.  “Ah, and what if I say coffee, my funny man?”

“Coffee?”

“Yes.  To atone for offending me.”

He gave her two small dimples at the upper corners of his mouth.  “Then I would say I would like that very much.”


	2. Beyond Good and Evil

**Chapter 2**

**Beyond Good and Evil**

_Friedrich Nietzsche once said: ‘A man with genius is unendurable if he does not also possess at least two other things: gratitude and cleanliness.’_

There was a coffee shop right across the street, one of those homely looking ones run by them local college kids.  Camille had once bought an overpriced mocha from there—it had tasted fairly ordinary and perhaps slightly over-roasted for the price, but she wasn’t actually very picky about coffee.  It was just one of those things that she picked up on, since all her coworkers commented on coffee as if they were connoisseurs.  Coffee was like a second wine to them.

In any case, she had awkwardly proposed that they meet up once they finished their grocery shopping, and he had awkwardly agreed with her.  The both of them awkwardly looked at the other afterwards, and together, they awkwardly begun to pick out their groceries.

She had discovered that he liked his pasta with stuffed with veal ( _manicotti_ , the label had said, and she learned a new Italian word), and showed him that she just put pesto on regular spaghetti.  He apparently didn’t care for sparkling water though, and she fancied that she saw a disapproving look when she picked up a six-pack of Pellegrino.  He did have an adorable sweet tooth, and unashamedly put three freshly baked pies in his cart.  She was going to pick up a bottle of Bailey’s as cream in her morning coffee, but feared his judgment and therefore abandoned that particular item.

It was even more awkward when the lady cashier mistook them for a couple and nearly started putting his items on her bill.  Camille explained with a smile that they won’t be sharing the bill, and her smile was strained when the lady rolled her eyes and muttered ‘These new fads with young couples these days’ under her breath.

She hoped that Mr. Psychology didn’t hear that.

Camille forgot all about that when he offered to carry some bags for her.  Strangely, she did not take offense to his presumption about her strength (he might have been right about the bags hurting her hands, but it didn’t mean she liked people pointing it out).  Perhaps it had something to do with his glasses, but Camille liked to think that it was because of his genuinely helpful tone, and not something shallow like the way his brown hair flopped in his eyes.

She preferred black hair to begin with.  Really.

They had walked out of the grocery store, and immediately saw the dimly lit coffee shop.  Camille pointed her chin towards it with a raised eyebrow.  Mr. Psychology frowned very, very lightly, but nodded in assertion.

“I know that one should never trust coffee in a shop lit by Byzantine-era oil lamps,” Camille apologized, “But it _is_ the only coffee shop within a five-minute walk.  Unless,” she started hopefully, “You would like to venture further and find a better one?”

“No,” he shook his head, “That one is good.”

“Ah, okay then,” she had replied, unsure of what to say next.  A general silence fell over them, and Camille squirmed slightly, shifting bags from one hand to the other.  Then she decided to be bold.  “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

He really did have a habit of frowning.  “I don’t think I gave it.”

“Right,” she admitted drily, “That was just a roundabout way that people sometimes ask for things.”

“Oh.”  He seemed genuinely surprised.  “Reid, Doctor Spencer Reid.”

Camille wasn’t too fond of the name Spencer—it always reminded her of that article that she saw criticizing that retailer called Spencer’s Gifts—but decided that it was a good name nonetheless.  Also the doctor part was impressive.  So she asked, “A doctor of the academic type, or the cut people up and sew them back up type?”

“The former, most definitely,” he replied quickly.

“In psychology, like you mentioned?”

“No, I only have a B.A. in psychology.”

She was about to say something about that being useful as well, but he went on talking.

“I’m a Doctor in Mathematics, Chemistry, and Engineering,” he perked up subtly as he gave his credentials, and Camille was almost inclined to judge him for his pride before she realized _holy shitsnacks_ , there was no way anybody could _not_ be proud of it.

“…I had considered Classics at one point, and had to explain to a lot of fellow students in Guidance class what that was, but realized that I had read all of the materials already.  I did learn the languages though, linguistics being a side-project for me in college.  Well, the Latin department in CalTech was rather awful, but I made do with it.”

At that point Camille was so intrigued as to what Spencer—she could call him Spencer right?—did daily to engage his mind, that she was not even intimidated by his achievements.  “Ah, Latin.  CalTech isn’t known for that.”

“No, it is not,” he agreed.

Just then, a horrible thought struck Camille—what if this fine specimen had a girlfriend?  Then she internally groaned, of course he had a girlfriend, it was silly to presume that a man as interesting and cute as him did not.  All the good ones were snatched.  Maybe the pies weren’t even for him, but rather his children, one five and one seven, named Melanie Klein Reid and Carl Gustav Reid, both of whom were slightly too thin for their age given the pressure from their perfectly-shaped Victoria Secret angel-looking mom.  Which was why Mr. Reid here was smuggling pies back for them in a misguided but sweet intentioned endeavor.  Melanie swam competitively, and Carl had a knack for illustration, or as much as first-graders did, which Mrs. Victoria’s Secret thought was emasculating of his masculinity, but allowed it slide since Mr. Conner had wooed her once with a carbon sketch of her lovely profile—

The wind-bell on the door chimed as he opened the door for her.

Oh what the hell, it was worth a shot.  Maybe Mrs. Victoria had an affair two years ago and had left him with the two children, now gaining more weight than advised by doctors, from the pies obviously.  Camille didn’t think she could deal with children—but, well, some things were worth the effort.

The place was decorated in a feel-good sort of way, with dewy peach walls and glowing tangerine furniture.  The china pieces were all minimalistic, and the entire place looked like a vignette showroom in Crate & Barrel.  The music was a soft indie song; most of the baristas wore plaid of some sort, and if anybody bent over the counter to look at their feet, they would see moccasins undoubtedly.  Along the wall was a banner that said in a flowing cursive, ‘What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.’

Camille felt cynical just by stepping in here.

A new siege of worries assaulted Camille when she looked up at the menu: she couldn’t decide which coffee to get.  She didn’t want to get a mocha, which was the most expensive item on the menu, but also wanted to be more interesting than just plain coffee.  Getting a chai latte would be so pretentious and hipster, but she really didn’t like cappuccinos.  Oh dear, the person in front of them was going up next, so that didn’t leave her very much time to ponder on this existential crisis.  Maybe she should ask about getting a drip and then when they say they don’t have it, get a shot of espresso.  But that sounded too snotty, and also she couldn’t sip on an espresso and drag on their coffee time.  Maybe she should just get what he was getting, but most likely he would let her go first.  Iced coffee didn’t even make sense for the colder night, and it was so clichéd.  Why had she not thought about the various connotations of coffee orders before?  It was such a complicated topic!

“What would you like?”  The barista with the over-sized glasses asked them.

Spencer gestured for her to order first, and she blurted out, “A dirty chai latte please.”

He ordered a simple coffee, and Camille wondered if he judged her for her order.  She just had to say a _dirty_ chai latte, so high maintenance of her.  Also, would he read that as a double entendre?

Perhaps she should relax a little.  So she did what was most natural to her—“I never could decide what I feel about this place,” she started conversationally as they made their way towards the waiting area.  “Everything is so yuppie, and then they have Nietzsche on the wall, but have somehow turned him into something kitschy.”

“What would you put on there then?”

“To represent Nietzsche?  Maybe something like ‘In a man devoted to knowledge, pity seems almost ridiculous, like delicate hands on a cyclops’, perhaps.  But that’s altogether too gloomy for a coffee shop.”

“Yet on January third, in 1889, he—”

“Saw the flogging of a horse on the streets of Turin—”, she cut him off.

“And threw his arms around it to protect it, overturning—”, not to be showed down, he cut her off in turn.

“His lifelong belief in the flourishing of higher men—”, and the game went on.

“And that life only had value in strength.  He was then an invalid, tended to—”, between the two of them.

“By his mother and sister,” she finished for both of them.

They looked at each other in breathless wonder. 

At some point, somebody called out, “Drip coffee for Spencer.”

Spencer started a little, but immediately recovered himself.  Blinking rapidly, he turned away from her, lowering his gaze to the ground, gave a small puzzled frown, and said, “Right, right, my coffee.  Coffee would be good.”

“A good, simple cup of coffee clears the blinding fog over our senses.  I’m just glad that my office offers free coffee, as bad as it may be, or else I would spend my entire earnings buying this stuff.”

“I spend on average fifty three dollars per week on coffee.  Usually lighter roasted, Ethiopian wet-processed beans.  It’s a general misconception that country defines the taste of beans, since the beans depend on processing and the local climate.  But it’s so deeply ingrained, that despite being arbitrary, it is a convenient guide when in a hurry.”

She was mistaken: there was nothing simple about his coffee.  “I normally just ask for a dark-roast, black.”

“Ah, a fan of the tangy, bittersweet taste that comes from the temperature.  You sacrifice the strength in caffeine for strength in taste.  Very fitting.”

Camille did prefer the stronger taste, but wondered how he could say that it was fitting after meeting her for the whole of ten minutes.

“Dirty chai,” the woman called again.  Camille thanked her and took the hot drink in her hands.  She could see Spencer half turning towards her to say something, then deciding against it.  She waited patiently, and this happened twice, before he finally made out, “I’m sorry, but what did you say your job was?”

“Ah, asking for what I live on now, are you?”  She said, smiling cattily.

“Well I was informed that this was the socially accepted way to go about asking questions to strangers.  Social niceties, you know.”  He made vague gestures with his hands to cover up his nervousness.  This was the first direct question he had voiced in their encounter.

“You were informed correctly.  I am a lawyer.  Or at least trying very hard to be one.”

He seemed to ponder it for a short moment.  “I didn’t know Nietzsche was required reading for precedence.”

“Most definitely not.  I majored in political philosophy back in college though—law schools _love_ philosophy majors.”  She remembered reading Descartes and Pascal and being surprised that they had other works beyond mathematics.  She remembered reading Hegel and wanting to bring him back to life to kill him again.  She remembered reading Hume then Kant and being angry with Kant’s incessant endeavor to assert God’s existence, for she was an agnostic.  She remembered reading Marx and feeling like she was flowing in a river of poetics.  She remembered Hannah Arendt and agreeing with her argument for the political conversations despite her dismissal of Freud.  She remembered Schmitt and following him down the slippery slope towards totalitarianism.  She remembered discovering Heidegger’s meadow of Being and weeping because of it.  “My mind will never again be as frustrated and brilliant as it was during that period of my life,” she summed up, surprising even herself with this admission.

“No, probably not,” he agreed.

For the first time Camille wished that he might have softened his words a bit.

“A three-year-old’s brain is twice as active as an adult’s,” he continued, “So there is really no comparison there.  It’s not the state of your brain that matters, it’s what you do with it.”

“Well,” she laughed dryly, “I’m not exactly contributing much to humankind with my brainpower either.”

“Lawyers are very important vessels of the judicial system.”

“Don’t put some noble virtue into my trade,” Camille dismissed his attempt to make her feel better, “I started with law school because I wanted to win every argument.”

“Again, very fitting.”

This whole typecasting thing was really starting to get at her.  If it was any other person playing Sherlock, Camille would have slammed a door at their face by now (preferably a real door), but Spencer—well, at this point she wouldn’t put much past him.  The guy couldn’t be much older than thirty, and he had _three_ PhDs and not to mention the lesser achievements like college degrees and fluency in multiple languages and having read all the books that she studied without even majoring in it and—the list went on.

“So what exactly _do_ you think I’m like?  So far you’ve said dark roasted coffee and an immature will to conquer all arguments are very _fitting_.”

“You value your own tastes: you have one of those bags that have a brand on it.  Your eyebrows are a shade darker than your hair, whereas it’s usually the other way around, suggesting that your hair color is dyed.  The roots, however, are a consistent color as your strands, a recent dye job.  You also touch your hair when you pause in your speech.  You care a lot about the presentation of yourself.”

—She did dye it apricot blonde from a light brown.

“You say ‘thank you’ and ‘please’ almost subconsciously, so you’ve had good manners drilled into you by your parents.  Most likely they are not divorced.  You mentioned that they were touring Europe—that is probably their first vacation together in many years.”

—They weren’t the happiest couple for a while, or really much of a couple, but no divorce occurred.  But this vacation was definitely helping.  Of course, it was their first trip together in a decade.

“You like your coffee dark-roasted and black, but you drink a dirty chai, so it seems that you don’t enjoy the taste of coffee so much as need the signal that a black coffee sends.”

—Oh how right he was, Camille always had a cup of black coffee on her desk.  She hated the coffee in the lounge, but that wasn’t the point.

“It makes sense that you are a lawyer, but you’ve just passed the assessment period.  You give a slight pause right before you speak, no matter how thoughtless the comment is, so you habitually pay attention to what you say exactly.  That comes from the profession, but it must have originated much earlier than law school for it to be so ingrained in you that even when you order a coffee you pause.”

—She was fastidious about what she said, and even her jokes went through her mind once before she said it.

“You were always a straight A’s student, but didn’t always know that you wanted to go into law.  Your thesis was on Nietzsche and his theory on the will to power.  You moved here recently from a big city—your accent isn’t from here—and it was a sacrifice that you consciously remind yourself of, so that you will be more motivated to keep up with the demanding hours—”

“New York, I come from New York,” she interrupted him.  “And I hate New York, but like everything you become used to, you miss it despite never liking it.  I had a lower than average GPA when applying to law school.  I had just passed the bar exam, but am only two months into a six months long assessment.  I’d decided to go into law since thirteen, to prove a point.  I pause before I talk because I have a habit of saying politically incorrect things with my college roommate, and have to stop myself now.  I wrote my B.A. on Foucault’s post-structuralist rejection of linguistic structure.  My parents never taught me manners—or anything else—I had taught myself.”

Spencer had never been so wrong about a person before, and to be frank, it was kind of fascinating to him.  To be fair, she left out how Foucault famously called himself a Nietzschean, but that was beside the matter.  He was still wrong about many things.

“But do go on,” she continued, “You were actually spot on about a lot of things.”

“Okay,” he abided, “You watch enough TV shows to stay current.  You really do have to win every argument.  You’re not married.  You do wear the same necklace most of the time, so there might be a significant other.”

He stopped when she chuckled.  It took a moment before she realized that he wasn’t making a joke, but was quite serious.  “Oh,” she immediately saw the need to clarify,  “Of course I don’t have a significant other—I mean, otherwise why would I—er, that is—oh I just don’t have a boyfriend is all.”

A certain tension fell from his face.  “Oh, oh good.”

She raised her eyebrows at him again, but this time she was simply amused and secretly pleased.

“I mean,” it was his turn to fumble with words.  “I had meant that I am glad, not that it’s good—it’s just that I would like to learn more about you.”  He smiled at her weakly before suddenly adding, “If that’s alright with you—I mean, if you would like to do that—er, to let me learn more—well, that is, by spending time together—not too much—I’m _really_ bad at this aren’t I?”

Camille sipped her dirty chai as his tirade went on, enjoying it more than she should have for his sake.  “Spencer, if you were half as bad as you professed, then I wouldn’t be agreeing with letting you ‘learn’ about me.”

“Oh, so you are agreeing to it?”

“Yes.”

“The spending time part, not particularly the learning—”

“Yes Spencer, let’s get coffee together again sometimes.”  She paused.  “Tomorrow.”

“Oh.”  A slight pause, during which he made sure he didn’t mishear her.  “Tomorrow would be lovely.”


	3. Of the Social Contract

**Chapter 3**

**Of the Social Contract**

_Jean-Jacques Rousseau once said: ‘Feelings come quicker than lightning and fill my soul, but they bring me no illumination; they burn me and dazzle me.’_

Suspicion did not strike her until when she was inserted the key into her apartment door, and she mulled it over the entire evening.

She questioned how a thirty-year-old man could have three PhDs, one from CalTech of all places.  He was either Patrick Bateman in the making or Stephen Hawking in his youth, and Camille didn’t particularly fancy being involved with either.  It just didn’t occur to her to ask about it when he was talking—her suspicion of people was alarmingly low for her profession—but that was because Spencer was _there_.  Somehow, the presence of the tall, lanky Spencer, with his hair flopping to the right in a distracting manner, and his eyebrows furrowed in concentration, made everything sound so _reasonable_.  The doubt rolled inside her stomach and so she soothed it with ice cream—Haagen-Dazs came out with this new peanut butter ice cream pie flavored ice cream, and it was kind of miraculous.

Her work suffered a little the next day, it taking her approximately three seconds longer to focus each time she turned a page.  It probably accumulated to much longer than three seconds, but Camille was not in the mood to figure it out.

Nevertheless, come eight thirty, she still stayed true to her promise and stood by the entrance to Wegmans’ grocery.

The thing was: Spencer wasn’t there.

Camille felt her heart sink, but also felt a sadistic realization towards herself, in a little voice that said ‘ _See, too good, too smart to be true; a liar, a charlatan, a fraud who gets off on the look of awe in strangers’ eyes—in real life, princes turn into frogs_ —

“Sorry!” came the out-of-breath apology, and Camille found her vengeful thoughts interrupted by Spencer who apparently just ran here.  “I’m so sorry,” he repeated his apology, “My car broke down, and I had to take care of it before calling for a cab.”

“No worries,” Camille smiled genuinely: she was just glad that he was here.

“Let me buy you coffee at least.”

“But of course,” she agreed easily.  “Even CalTech teaches one good manners, it seems.”

They walked, exchanging their autobiographies.  Camille allowed herself to be persuaded that he _was_ a genius, in a McArthur kind of way, and was born in Vegas.  He was hesitant to give details beyond that, so Camille offered her own tidbits—that she had been born in a small hospital in Middlesex, before the name became synonymous with a hermaphrodite chasing the American Dream.  She studied at NYU, despite being able to do better—Columbia, her dad said; Harvard, her mom said; but both forbid her to go do philosophy.  She had been with Baker  & Hostetler for about half a year now.

He frowned lightly at the mention of spending her days in a cubicle under fluorescent lights, so she naturally inquired what the matter was.  And that was how she teased out that his dad was an attorney, and he was not quite on great terms with the man.

“He does have a very sick cat though,” Spencer said, “And that’s kind of redeeming.”

“Really?” Camille asked excitedly.  “My nanny had a sick cat too!  It got better once I started feeding it too much though and it just became fat.”

The conversation then meandered, and instead of the past, they talked about everything from the preferred seat on an airplane—window versus aisle, and both of them were window people—to the general superiority of old Oxford editions of books.  They lamented the woes of lost luggage—his trip to Virginia for training, which prompted him to update his wardrobe from baggy, teenage tees to cardigans, and her trip to Egypt, where she had to buy all the local garbs to guard against the desert sun and wind anyway.  They discussed the natural next step in the plot to _Mad Men_ —the fall of the heroic Don, whose era of the 50’s had passed onto the new Jewish guy’s generation—and disagreed on the merits of _Portlandia_ —Camille re-watched it every other week but Spencer just couldn’t see the humor.  They then got over their dispute with their shared dislike of the Christmas times, although Spencer’s distaste was for the spike in crime rates, and Camille just hated it because her family never got a Christmas tree.  They then giggled over this advertisement poster that was badly Photoshopped.

By the time coffee came into their hands, Camille had fallen in love.

It was a sudden realization, one that came at the moment Spencer tucked his wavy brown hair behind his right ear, eyes cast down shyly.  He was saying something, but Camille could only focus on how adorably dorky he was, with the way he anxiously began his sentences, rushed as if he expected to be interrupted at any second, and how his cardigans always fit his torso in a scholarly manner, and his other hand fiddled with the edge of the pocket.  Her heart surged and beat faster, although it might have been the effect of the double shot of espresso.

She felt at ease, for the first time in a long time, and enjoyed the bubbling glow.  She was too old to take the heady feeling for granted, but too young to have lost the longing for being overwhelmed with feeling for another human being.  Caught up in this oddly introspective moment, she failed to speak for half a minute.

Spencer was looking at her, caught between worrying about upsetting her somehow, and just worrying in general.

Camille smiled apologetically, although she did not apologize.  “It’s an unusually warm day for this time of the year,” she commented.

Spencer remarked that indeed it was.

Then a short paused, during which Camille pondered how to ask him for a walk and hoped that he was thinking on how to ask her the same.  Without a topic, Camille uneasily wound and rewound her hands around the coffee cup, not knowing where they belonged.  The awkward silence left both struggling to say something, to broach a relevant subject; yet, what was there to say?  Camille had never before felt so out of her element—usually words flowed out her mouth like a river.  But love began and ended with awkwardness when being alone—she remembered reading that somewhere.  In the end, Camille turned to him with a brilliant smile (if she said so herself) and said: "The coffee is too hot, perhaps a walk around the park would cool it?"

Spencer, in his typical manner, replied, "Yes, through the Styrofoam cup the coffee would cool at approximately 4.7 Fahrenheit a minute, given the outside temperature of around 75 and your bodily contact with it."

Camille was unsure if that was a gentle rejection.  She decided to take her chance, and maintaining her brilliant smile (not without some effort), she asked, "Would _you_ like to walk around the park then?"

"There is a park nearby?"

“Yes, shall we?”

“Oh, yes, of course,” Spencer nodded enthusiastically and followed her.

And Camille was made happy—the best thing about love, she thought, was how easily happiness came.

“So Spencer, what exactly do you do, with this massive intellect of yours?” she asked.

“I work at the Behavioral Analysis Unit.  I profile criminals.”

It was something that Camille would have found macabre a day ago, but now was extremely fascinating.  “So … you use psychology?”

“In a sense.  We do both behavioral and investigative analysis.  When we get invited to the local jurisdictions, we act as both consultant and agent.”

Camille had a sinking feeling that when he gave testimony, on the other side of the court would be somebody like her, defending the very criminals that they were trying to convict.  She prudently redirected the conversation towards _him_ instead of his job, with a sentence that never, ever failed: “You must be really good at it.”

“I am,” his chest puffed up and Camille thought that it was heart melting how cute he was.  “I’m very good at my job.”

“No doubt,” she cooed, watching the way his lips formed words.  The heat of the coffee burned through the paper cup holder, but Camille forgot about her hands.

“It helps to have eidetic memory, reading speed of twenty thousand per minute.”

She imagined that it would—and not just at his job.  Although she didn’t envy him—it must have _sucked_ in high school.  “You could probably do my job—and a million others—very well.  Life of the mind, right?” she joked.

Except he didn’t take it as a joke.  “Indeed, I find that there is comfort in learning.  I’m considering taking up another degree as a side project.”

“Don’t do Law, _please_.”

He frowned in confusion, “Why not?  Don’t you like it?”

“As much as anybody likes their job,” she answered, “But I would hate to see you knowing more in a week than I after years of education and practice.”  As she talked on about law, her mind was planning on inviting him for a drink at a bar.

He took her comment as the compliment that she had intended it to be, and happily smiled.  “Perhaps Economics then.”

She made a face: “That sounds useful.”  Economics was one auxiliary subject that she was forced to take and had a hard time with—thankfully, it was only two requirements, and her boyfriend at the time was an Economics major.

Their date—was it a date?—was interrupted by a phone call.

“Sorry,” Spencer took out his phone and frowned at it, “I have to take this.”

Camille gestured with her hand that it was fine.

The conversation was short—it was mostly just the other person talking.  She could make out some bubbly female voice talking at a hundred miles per hour.  Spencer just answered with a curt if tired “I’m on my way” and then hung up.

He looked at her with guilt in his eyes, “I’m really sorry, but I have to go.”

“Work?” she asked delicately.

“Yeah,” he tucked his hair again, and Camille forgave him for _everything_.

“The General Will calls for you,” she joked.

He cracked a smile, “Thanks,” he said about her unspoken understanding.

“But hey,” she stopped him before he could actually leave, “I’m hitting the bar with a couple of friends tonight, do you want to come if you’re done with work?”

“I’ll see,” he said, but his fidgeting made it clear that it was the ‘no I won’t’ kind of ‘I’ll see’.

“Oh,” she said, disappointed.  “Maybe some other day.”

“Yeah, that sounds good.”

“Okay.  Well, bye,” she had to be the one to give the official word of goodbye.

“Bye,” he said, and quickly ran off.

Well, Camille thought as she took the first sip of her cold coffee, a woman should never try to compete with public duty. **  
**


	4. Human, All Too Human

**Chapter 4**

**Human, All Too Human**

_Friedrich Nietzsche once said: ‘If you have hitherto believed that life was one of the highest value and now see yourselves disappointed, do you at once have to reduce it to the lowest possible price?’_

Camille was sorry to say that things progressed more slowly after that.  Much, much slower.  In fact she would be wary of saying that things progressed at all, although she could not be faulted for a lack of effort.

They met for coffee; frequently, she could even say, since thrice a week was more than she could remember eating lunch.  Every time they had coffee—sometimes just a quick ten minutes chat, and other times a more drawn out tête-à-tête of perhaps even an hour long—she would invite him out for a stroll in the museum or a casual drink in a nearby pub.  He always turned her down, but would then almost apologetically, but still enthusiastically, make plans for the next coffee date-not-date.

Naturally, she was quite confused, and very frustrated.

So one Friday night, she met up with her girlfriends from college and hit the pub that she had thought about for a long while now.

Friday night at Roman’s pub was never overwhelming, but always with enough college kids that it was sticky-floored and rowdy, with plenty of food spilt over and beer caps on the ground.  There was a small, gritty box filled with old AA badges: it was that kind of place.

Camille had extended an invitation to Spencer yesterday at the coffee shop, but of course he gave her a watery ‘depends’, and of course she no longer anticipated him.  The power of hope could only fight reality for so long.  So instead, she put on a strappy, bandage dress that she would only feel comfortable in around her girls, and stepped up to the bar.

“One margarita, two gin and tonics, and one mojito, please,” she flashed the bartender a smile and ordered.  Natalia liked her drinks sweet and fruity, Elle didn’t like giving off the signal of being sweet and fruity, and Rosalie never knew what to order so always doubled on Elle’s orders.

“Sorry, we don’t do mojitos,” the bartender replied without any remorse.

A lot of bars didn’t like going through the effort of muddling mint, but Camille had thought maybe if she was friendly enough… Oh well, “three gin and tonics then.”

“I told you an establishment like this wouldn’t even lie about not having mint,” Elle said behind her, “They just straight-up say they don’t want to make one.”

“It was worth a shot,” Camille replied.  Even if nothing panned out.

“It’s just good to see you guys again,” Rosalie said enthusiastically, “I don’t care what we drink as long as we do!”

“Well said,” Natalia responded, reaching over to grab the overflowing drinks from the counter, “now let me shoot my goddamn margarita.”

“Easy,” Camille steadied Natalia, “that’s not going to come out gently out of your Equipment silk shirt.”

“Do you honestly expect to come out of tonight with our clothes unblemished?” Natalia asked with a raised brow.

Camille shrugged, “I’m not going crazy tonight.”

“What?” Rosalie exclaimed, “But we hardly see each other anymore!  I mean, _Quantico_ , gosh, it’s like, _Nevada_ or something.”

“Yeah, well,” Camille defended, “You know, federal security, government shit, can’t do much here.”

“I’m not asking for fucking the Strip here,” Natalia grumbled as she tilted back the last bit of her drink, putting it on the counter, and doing that little wave of hand that signalled a refill.  “But I mean, we couldn’t even find a decent bar, and believe me, we _looked_.”

“It gets the job done,” Camille said.  No, it didn’t—this was a _shithole_ of a dive bar, with too many sleazy drunkards and too many darts flying around.  She missed New York every day—the glitzy, swanky bars for rich dates, the dimly-lit, retro-themed speakeasies, the pole dancers and strobe lights in clubs, the underground, ten-for-five-shots college bars—the grimy city had it all, whatever one was in the mood for.  Camille hadn’t thought herself as a snobby New Yorker until she left it.  But she couldn’t be a bad hostess and just whine all night long—this group of friends had the most fun when they did, but it was also the most misery if they lost track.

“Oh chin up,” Elle said, looking equally miserable, “the crowd’s less, but whatever.”

“You mean there’s much less competition here,” Rosalie giggled.  It was very easy to typecast Rosalie, and there had been jokes of her being Rosalie Duthé, the original dumb blonde, but she surprised people all the time with just how perceptively blunt she could be, harpooning one when one least expected it from her.  For example, now, she was twirling a curl of her bouncy, voluminous bob, and god, what a smile.

Elle kept a blank face.  Elle was the self-proclaimed feminist, who refused to go blonde when even Natalia did an ombre-effect in junior year, who wore an oversized Kenzo sweater with smoking slippers to see her boyfriend’s parents, who scoffed at _The Hobbit_ for its lack of female representation, and who would refuse to tip if the bartender brought an umbrella with her drink.  She and Rosalie had a competitive undercurrent to every line of dialogue.  Despite that, they had a third roommate who always left the alarm on in the morning, the window open in winter, the shower running after playing with herself, and invaded their closet space with her many sequined BCBG numbers.  There were no grudges amongst Americans against the German, as the saying went.

“There doesn’t _need_ to be a crowd for competition when _you’re_ here, Rosie,” Natalia said nonchalantly.  Natalia had buck teeth and although not unattractive, she paled in comparison next to Rosalie.  She didn’t mind though, saying that she dressed up for the gay men, and if Camille hadn’t gone through her college heartbreak with her, Camille would have thought her a lesbian.  As it turned out, Rosalie was actually the lesbian, who always had been halfway in love with Natalia.  And if Natalia was a little too malicious in feeling vindicated against those men who ignored her to hit on Rosalie, well, it didn’t hurt anybody.

Camille already felt better about her own thwarted love life.

Theirs was an odd group, and actually none of them got along with each other individually, except Camille and Natalia, but for inexplicable reasons, their group stuck through four years of college drama with minor scratches, and had actually kept in touch afterwards, a rarity amongst graduation promises.

So here they were, drinking rounds and complaining about their various lives until they got drunk enough to stop caring and joined the sleazy bastards in darts.

“… Let me tell you,” Elle said, “ _never_ trust cosmetics companies.  You guys wouldn’t _believe_ how completely shady your night creams are.”

“I thought only women past thirty-five used night creams,” Rosalie threw back, tapping the apples of her firm, rosy cheeks with the back of her index fingernail, as if subconsciously, and as if making a point.

“We aren’t too far from that ourselves,” Natalia said glibly, gleeful as her words sent the other three in an unanimous sigh.

“We used to joke about being halfway to forty all the time,” Camille mused, “and now it’s fearsome just _thinking_ about forty.”

“You know what,” Elle declared and smashed down her empty glass on the bar counter, emitting a loud, shrill sound, “we should just chat people up.  Let’s just all find a stranger and chat him up.  Or her,” she added with a sideways glance at Rosalie.

“Because our self-worth is proven and only proven by men’s attraction to boobs, yes,” Rosalie said, all smiles at Elle.  Which wasn’t really a no, coming from the tipsy (therefore snappy and ill-humored) Roaslie.

“Aw, Rosie,” Natalia draped an arm over Rosalie’s shoulder, “don’t be like that, you know you love making men think they have a shot with you and then trample their poor, unsuspecting egos.”

“You mean _you_ love it,” Rosalie retorted cheerily, staring at Natalia as her arrow struck dead center, not letting a single facial twitch pass by.

“A round of tequila shots!” Camille yelled at the bartender.  A bit more alcohol in these girls’ system would make them all best friends in the entire world.  She would never understand this mutually abusive dynamic, she rolled her eyes at Elle, who responded with a small ‘what-can-I-say’ shrug.

“You know,” Camille said all of sudden, “we should try it out.  I mean, we haven’t done it since—you know, the last time we got together.”

Elle raised her eyebrows, surprised to find an advocate in Camille, who was by far the most reserved of their group usually.

Camille didn’t see Elle’s expression though, because she was looking over Elle’s shoulder, at the door, which had a few seconds ago opened to show _Spencer_ walking in.

He was in a charcoal gray shirt and a slim tie in some darkish color, loosened unceremoniously.  She couldn’t see his face very well from this far away—these blasted flickering lights overhead didn’t illuminate more than the ceiling of this place—but his hair was ropey and was flat against his skull.  He looked in need of a rest, and when he stepped in, he stumbled over somebody’s forgotten bag.

No sympathy, Camille told herself, don’t feel bad for him, _no_.

“Alright,” Elle said, “let’s get this game rolling then.  I call that guy in the corner checking his phone.”  She made off towards the man, a middle-aged man who was looking over his phone with an expression of either boredom or mild apprehension.

“ _Him_?” Natalie judged his receding hairline shamelessly.

Rosalie swished her curls with a shake of her head, “She likes going for men she thinks she’s better than.  That guy,” she pointed her chin to the same direction, “twenty on he’s gay.”  It was a dark-haired, skinny young man with lofty, teased up hair brushed back with gel.  He had delicate features and was sucking on a cigarette as he ravaged his pockets, probably looking for a lighter.  Nobody took her bet on, but she worked her way towards him anyway.

“With her luck, he’s probably a straight serial killer,” Natalie joked.

Camille laughed despite feeling like she shouldn’t.

“You got your eyes on anybody?” Natalie asked.

Camille looked around, “That one,” she said decisively.

Natalie swept the room with a discreet, quick glance.  “Whoa, tiger, go roar.”

Camille smiled gratefully at Natalie’s encouragement, because she needed it—the man was tall, with carelessly tossed dark hair and Roman cheekbones.  He wore a sweater that would have been too feminine on another person, but with a propped white shirt collar and on his well-toned body, it just looked fashionably out of place at this bar.  He had a slight five-o’clock-shadow, and he scanned the room with his deeply set eyes as some girl talked animatedly to him.  He was without a doubt, the best looking guy here.

Camille peeked at Spencer without looking directly in his direction.  He was conveniently only a few feet away from this gorgeous man, and Camille strutted over.

Shit, what was she going to say?  Being engrossed in waiting for Spencer’s reaction, Camille did not think about how to chat up this guy, and froze a little when she finally stood by the man.

He looked her at her and _frowned_.

“Hey,” not to be defeated by just a look, Camille tried, “you in town for a conference or something?”

He said nothing, just lifted his left eyebrow.  The other girl stopped talking though, but after a moment’s silence, she went on about some pool party.

“Ah college days,” Camille commented, trying again.

And again, he ignored her.

Camille cleared her throat awkwardly and gestured to the bar, “I’ll go get a drink,” she said to excuse herself.

Just as she was about to leave though, the man half turned towards her, looking her up and down one more time.  “Lady,” he said derisively, “I’m not into cheap hookers.”

Camille was stunned.  “What?” she breathed out, then immediately tried to clarify, “I’m not—no—I wasn’t suggesting anything.”

He merely sneered at her.

Camille fled to the exit in utter mortification.  She tried to avoid being seen by her friends, slipped outside, and slumped against the wall.  She felt small and ugly and exposed and she was shaking and god she was going to _cry_.  She knew it wasn’t the proper response to one man’s mean-spirited comment, but she also didn’t know what _was_ the proper response.  So she hid her head behind her hair and tried to focus on breathing.

“Hey,” Spencer’s voice came over, gentle and barely audible over the clamour from inside and the ringing in her head.  He leaned against the wall beside her and remained silent.

Camille stole a glimpse at him through her hair, and he was looking straight ahead.  He had overheard, she knew.  _Fabulous_.  Just when she felt it couldn’t get more humiliating.  She was determined to pretend that one of them didn’t exist, when he cleared his throat.

“Uh, I guess I shouldn’t ask how your night’s going, huh,” he said.

“Probably not the best timing.”

“Right,” he said, and fell quiet once again.

“Um,” after a while he tried again, “My co-workers had this thing at the bar down the street, in celebration of our latest case.  I—I remembered that you said you’d be here, so uh, I thought, that, maybe, I could drop by.”

“Great,” she mumbled out.

“They’re still there, if you want to join us.”

“No,” Camille said.  What was he, stupid?  She was crying and he asked her if she wanted to go back to drinking?

“Sorry,” he apologized, “I’m not very good at this.”

Camille slumped her shoulders—she felt silly taking out her anger on Spencer.  Here he was, being a decent human being, and she was being an ass.  “Sorry,” she sighed, “I shouldn’t—I just.  That was very upsetting,” she ended up saying, which wasn’t even a real apology.  God she was just the worst.  So she tried again, wiping the bottom lash line of her eyes carefully and straightening up, “I mean, you should go join them if you want.  I’ll just need another moment.”

“It’s okay,” he said, then quickly added, “I mean, it’s okay to take a moment.  It’s also okay to not go, I mean, I already said that I was leaving for home anyway.  Everything’s okay.”

“Home?” Camille asked, because Spencer’s bumbling attempt was, despite everything, making her feel better.

He scratched the back of his head, “They would want to tag along and see you too if I told them.  They’re very nosy.”

It wasn’t a complaint, not with how his eyes crinkled in a smile and his voice was fond.  “They sound nice,” Camille said sincerely.   She couldn’t understand being genuine friends with one’s co-workers, but it was a warm, fuzzy concept, and she needed warm, fuzzy things.

“They are,” he said firmly.

Once again they fell quiet.  Another person came out for a smoke, and coughed as he inhaled the wrong way.  The night was chilly, although Spencer still did not put his coat on.  The sky was deeply black, barely lit by the streetlights below.  That was also something different from New York, but right now, Camille didn’t think she minded as much.

“Here,” a weight was dropped on her shoulders.  Spencer looked away, “You’re cold.”

She was?  Oh she supposed that she was, although she hadn’t noticed, but he was right, her hand had come up to cover her bare arms strewn with goose bumps.  She tugged his coat closer, cold from the air and the wool a little scratchy against her skin—a comfortable weight.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized.

“It’s alright,” they repeated themselves.

She sighed.  “We used to do that in college, my friends and I.  Elle was the one who started it.  I guess I’d always been fortunate enough to never be shot down like that.”

“That wasn’t a shoot-down,” Spencer shook his head, “the guy recognized you from somewhere.  He  was going in for the damage.”

“What?”

“It took him approximately two seconds to remember you—he has a visual memory, at least.  His eyes almost left you before refocusing and then observing.  Then his posture changed—his knees bent involuntarily, by second nature, he probably has close combat training of some sort in the past, and his core tensed.  Fighting stance.  The negligence was contrived, and he always kept you well in his peripheral vision.  I think there’s a great likelihood that he recognizes you from either sometimes in the past, or through a secondary means such as a photo or social media.”

Camille was both impressed and a little uncomfortable.  “You know,” she blurted out, “you’d be much better at my job than me.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, brows together in unaffected confusion.

Camille slumped back against the wall, “You’ve got a killer memory, and you’re much better at reading people.”

“Eidetic memory,” he corrected her, “and the reading comes with training and practice.”

“That really doesn’t help,” Camille said dryly.  Law school was supposed to be ample ‘training’.

“Sorry.  I don’t … usually do,” he waved, “this.”

She mimicked his gesture, “This?”

“This being social thing.”

“Social,” she deadpanned.

“Yes,” he said, averting her eyes, “This is actually the most social I’ve ever been.  Since high school actually, when I coached the men’s basketball team using basic trigonometry and regressional statistics, really.  But that was because it helped with the bullying.  I guess being bullied is considered a social interaction as well, but just not very enjoyable.  Even that stopped in college though; people generally just ign—”

She kissed him.

For the record, she could do _so_ much better than that kiss, but she had been just crying and he was in the middle of a sentence.  Unlike the scenes in movies, kissing somebody while their mouth was in motion was not a very easy or pleasant thing.  Their teeth clanked and as they both tried to move their noses crashed—but after a few adjustments, it was nice.  It was good.  Camille thought he enjoyed it, and of course she did.

“So,” she breathed into his mouth, “let’s skip this ‘coffee meet-cute and tiptoe around each other’ thing then, shall we?”

“What’s a meet-cute?”

“Missing the point here,” she said emphatically.

“Oh, oh,” he said, flustered and pulling back.

“What’s wrong?” she frowned worriedly.

“Er, when you say ‘skip’ the coffee thing, what do you want to skip to?”

Well if she was going to be shameless… “To the ‘let’s properly go out’ thing?”

“Oh,” he said softly.

“Er,” she was less and less confident now, “oh?  What does ‘oh’ mean?  Is that like, a good ‘oh’, or like, you’ve-got-it-completely-wrong ‘oh’?”

“No, no,” he said, confusing Camille even more.  Upon realizing that, he rectified, “Good ‘oh’, definitely good ‘oh’.  It’s just, I, I never really thought of having a companion—a companion in the sense that you’re offering.  There are a lot of things you would have to be to bear with me.  I’ve been told that I’m terrible at social things, I’ve gotten better over the years, but still requires patient guiding.  I also work to an erratic schedule and am prone be being called away at a moment’s notice, for days on end, without any explanation other than that it’s work.  And my work is always associated with danger and death, so definitely a strong nerve at that thought.  And I guess what I’m trying to convey is, I don’t really understand why you would want to be with me,” he finished off meekly.

Camille threw her arms around him, unable to speak.  She felt she was holding the sun against her chest: fiery and inexplicable, precious and so heartbreakingly simple.  “Oh Spencer,” she said, “You don’t have to know why I want to, as long as you know that I _do_.”

Spencer pulled away, stared intently at her face, rebalancing himself on his heels.  He was frowning a little and his lips thinned into a line.  They were so _close_ —which was to say, they were further than Camille would have liked them to be.  They had just kissed a few moments ago, but somehow, this felt more _personal_ and more _invading_ though she definitely did not mind this invasion.  Her breath felt suffocating, and made her throat raspy, like she had been breathing through her mouth—

Oh, she thought with exploding clarity, he’s about to kiss me again.  The knowledge rushed through her—how absolutely uncharacteristic and _magnificent_.  She gulped because there was so much bloody saliva under her tongue, and she hoped he did not notice.  It was rather embarrassing, since he might mistake that as a sign that she was _nervous_.  Or worse, repulsed, because she certainly was not repulsed—no because she didn’t find him repulsive, or the thought of him kissing her—

“Camille!”

Of course, Camille thought.  Of course the dramatic kiss would be interfered—it was only logical.

“Hey—whoa!” Rosalie stopped herself suddenly and caused Natalia to run into her.  “ _Whoa_ , we’re on a _roll_ tonight!”

“Oh wow,” Elle came around, “Natalia _just_ started to make out, but _clearly_ you two have been going at it, do you _see_ how red your cheeks are?”

“No,” Camille replied, “I can’t, actually, see my cheeks.”

“Well you clearly won the chat-up game tonight,” Elle said, undeterred.

“So you _do_ admit it’s a competition,” Rosalie said triumphantly.

“Of course,” Elle admitted easily, “What isn’t a competition?”

Rosalie laughed and kissed Elle’s cheek.

“Actually, I didn’t, we—,” Camille started, sniffling through every other word.

“Yes, I’ve been waiting all night to talk to her,” Spencer interrupted her, his eyes quickly darting from one girl to the next.  “How did you guys know?”

Camille knew that look, the blank face with the slightly tilted head—he was making deductions.  God, everything they did tonight probably was an open book to him.  She wanted to hide her face.

Elle wolf whistled and Rosalie said elusively, “Lucky guess.”

Although Camille supposed she should just be glad that both sides were trying to make her look better to the other party.  That gave her a warm glow, well, in addition to her current glow.

Natalia came up behind Elle and Rosalie, and, upon hearing this, mouthed, ‘Is this him?’

Camille nodded.

Natalia pursed her lips approvingly and nodded, giving him a once over before ramming into Elle.  “Yo, girl, too dry.”

“Geez, you alcoholic,” Elle said, shoving Natalia off but turning to her obligingly.  “Where’s the professor?”

“He’s not _that_ old,” Natalia scoffed, “and he wants to buy us all a round.  Come in whenever,” Natalia threw at Camille just as she was about to disappear into the doorway, the other two girls close on her heels.

And it was the two of them again.  Well, them and the smoker, who’d clearly been eavesdropping, and the bunch of drunken sorority girls parading the block, and that guy puking in the alleyway with his buddy peeing right next to him.  But it was just the two of them.  Camille stared at Spencer, and Spencer stared back at her.  Then Spencer looked away almost sheepishly, rubbing the back of his aching neck, fingers fighting with matted, stray hair, while turning away his gaze.  Spencer attempted to speak, but, not knowing quite what had brought about this sudden awkwardness, only had success in opening his mouth.

Camille felt her heart turn into a goop of molten, useless heap.  “Let’s go inside,” she looped her arm around him and pecked him quickly on the lips, “We have plenty of time.”

It had turned out to be a great night, all in all. **  
**


	5. Civilization and Its Discontents

**Chapter 6**

**Civilization and Its Discontents**

_Sigmund Freud once said: ‘It is always possible to bind together a considerable number of people in love, so long as there are other people left over’._

The phone buzzed against her desk, startling Camille.

She stopped what she was doing—what she was always doing at 7:00pm on a Thursday evening: drinking coffee that had turned disgustingly lukewarm in her negligence as she encountered a particularly knotty paragraph.  A large part of her job was constructing and deconstructing deliberately confusing language.  It was rather like holding a large, unwieldy sword, Camille liked to think, on a quest to save the princess that required a lot of jumping.

Most times, the princess turned out to be in another castle.

Camille forced that train of thoughts to brake, and picked up her phone.  The screen flashed ‘Anchovies’ like a digitalized cracked turtle shell.  Or did the Greeks use tortoise shell?

She slid her finger across the screen, clearing her throat and her mind at the same time.  “Hello,” she said.  This marked the first time that he called her—something to mark down on her calendar, since _she_ was always the ones reaching out, making plans, making sure he didn’t forget she existed.  She hoped that ‘hello’ wasn’t too formal and uninviting, but ‘hey’ seemed too casual just yet and she really didn’t want to come off as that sort of woman after the whole pub scene.  She wondered if Spencer was deciphering the code of her diction as much as she was.

“Hello,” came the reply, gently hesitating.

Camille couldn’t tell if he had thought her greeting was frigid, or he usually sounded slightly uncertain over the phone.  God she hated telephone calls.  She always botched phone interviews.

“What,” came tentatively from the other end, “are you doing this Saturday night?”

She wanted to say, ‘Oh Spen, ever since meeting you I’ve been keeping all my Saturdays free’.  Instead, she went with the less creepy, “No plans yet, why?”

“So there is this department party,” he sounded awfully flustered, and Camille could envision him keep moving his hands as if he didn’t know what to do with them.  “And we’re supposed to bring dates—I mean, date in the loosest sense—not that I mean it’s a ‘loose’ event—”

“So _is_ it a date?” Camille was enjoying this perhaps more than she should have.

“Well, I would not be opposed to it maybe being something like a date if you don’t mind the possibility of it potentially being a date.”

Camille sighed.  This was getting nowhere.  “Spencer, we’re not in middle school anymore, you don’t have to have _permission_ to ask me on a date.”

“Oh.”  A short pause, then, “Would you—would you like to be my date to the party then?”

“Happily,” she answered, waving her free hand around like a giddy sorority girl.  She didn’t care if the partner walking past looked at her like she was crazy.  (She wouldn’t be the only one at the firm, at least.)

**-.-.-**

She anguished, positively _anguished_ before her closet for a good hour, trying to decide what to wear.  Camille was a professional woman who took great pride in being able to dress herself smartly in under ten minutes, but here she was, trying to decide if a teal-toned dark sapphire looked better against her skin than a bright mandarin orange.  Was the black lace overlay dress too short and tight?  Was the ruffled silk gown too formal?

In the end she donned the black number that that she impulsively bought for the company Christmas party.  It was a lace-sleeved drape dress that dipped to her lower back and hugged her hips, and she looked gorgeous in it—if she said so herself.  Spencer was a very tall man when he straightened, so she put on her red-heeled stilettos and resolutely commanded her toes to suffer through the pain quietly.

At precisely five to six, she took deep breaths before her mirror.  She had finished setting the powder and curling her hair, and she took great effort to keep her hands from touching her hair.  The edge of the Spanx was uncomfortable against her stomach—it was going to roll, she knew it.  She would have to remember to not lose her gold, crystal embellished minaudière, but a shoulder chain wasn’t as elegant as a handheld, and the gold chain would clash with the slim gold necklace tracing down her spine.  Every other second, she suspected that the gold and ruby pin in her hair was already beginning to slide down her hair, but resisted adjusting it.  All in all, she was as ready as she could be.

She stepped outside (maybe she forgot something?).  The elevator took forever to come up from the basement (check for her phone, keys, gum, lipstick, perfume, floss, she locked the door, right?).  The elevator music was the hasty Summer Presto in Vivaldi (did she forget about checking if she forgot something?).  She nodded to the doorman who complimented her (was she running late because she kept fretting?).

She couldn’t believe her eyes when she stepped outside: Spencer Reid was parked to the curb in a horizon blue two-door vintage.  How very James Bond of him.  Granted it was a Volvo and not an Aston Martin, but Camille didn’t expect him to have the money for something like a vintage Aston.  She wouldn’t know how to put her feet in one.  She suspected it would be awfully bumpy.

“You look beautiful,” Spencer said.

Camille felt herself blush despite calmly (more so in any case) receiving the same compliment from the doorman.  “You look very dapper as well,” she said honestly.  He was in a gray check wool suit with skinny cuffed pants that would have looked contrived on anybody else, but Camille thought it gave the perfect air of being accidentally fashionable.

He closed in and was shooting for an European greeting, but Camille panicked and thought he wanted a kiss, so she leaned forward—nearly losing balance!—and pecked his lips.  Was he expecting more tongue, or at least a longer kiss?—she wondered immediately.

Spencer was surprised, and when she pulled back his hand immediately shot up to touch his lips, then as if realizing what he was doing, he quickly whipped his hand back to his side and pretended like he didn’t do that.

It stayed awkwardly silent, until Camille’s stomach growled.

She blushed, but laughed at herself, and Spencer opened the door for her.  “I picked up the chicken nuggets for you,” he said, then added worriedly, “Are you sure that’s fine?  We could stop somewhere else as well.”

He had asked if she wanted something to eat before heading to the party, because food at the event would be a scarce resource.  It was sweet and considerate, and she only wanted some very plebeian chicken nuggets.  She didn’t particularly care for nuggets—although she liked the food as much as anybody else—but the point was signalling she was down-to-earth and low-maintenance.  That contradicted her very expensive dress and even more expensive handbag—to be attractive was to stay an enigma, her father had always said.  She didn’t always agree with father, but—

“It’s fine, it’s not messy and it’s great prep for drinking,” she said.

“As long as you’re certain,” he said, sliding into his seat and starting the engine.  “Whatever you want tonight, okay?”

Camille hid her smile by looking out the car.  She also didn’t want to stop for dinner because she was anxious to go and meet his coworkers.  They said that the three steps of a relationship were the introductions to friends, parents, then coworkers.  Spencer wasn’t the type to have many friends, and he never mentioned his parents, so Camille was okay with jumping straight to the last part.  A bit nervous—she _had_ to make a good first impression—but was more excited than anything else.

Okay fine, she was really extremely nervous, probably too much so for her stomach’s processing of chicken nuggets.

The drive was short—the entire city was kind of small—and soon they pulled up to an austere looking building.  It stood taller than its neighbors, and shrouded in the gloomy light of twilight, it appeared redder than usual and its windows darker.

Spencer came around to open the door again, but she had already climbed out.  He smiled apologetically and she returned an apologetic smile.

He piloted her through various hallways to the elevator loft, and eventually they passed through one large, claustrophobic room with clustered desks and computers, heaps of disorganized papers, and great pillars supporting the roof.  They came to an even larger room, but this one was cleared and turned into a makeshift ballroom.

“Doctor Reid, who’s your lovely friend?” they were accosted before Camille could even flag down one hors d’oeuvre—as predicted by Spencer.  The accoster in question was an Italian-looking man with a healthy tan and a slightly uneven Van Dyck beard.  Round eyes on a round smiling face, Camille could see him coming here with a much younger woman.

“This is Camille Koenig, my uh,” he faltered.

“His date,” Camille finished for him helpfully.

The man scrunched his face, “You can do better than that, kid; give the beautiful lady the introduction she deserves.”

Camille’s face flared up.

“David Rossi,” the man continued, either not noticing or kindly ignoring her embarrassment.  “Welcome to the BAU.”  Then, realizing she didn’t recognize the acronym, he added, “The Behavioral Analysis Unit.  Part of the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime of the FBI.”

“Oh,” Camille said, “Right.”

“Reid didn’t tell you where he works?” David asked, surprised.

“He did, just not in great detail.”  They always went on tangents too much to really talk about their work—she knew his MIT years better than his current job, and they had talked more about Doctor Who than the BAU.  Which was fine by her, really, because she didn’t want to talk about her work either.

“Huh,” David hummed thoughtfully, “Guess you gotta step outside of the job somehow.  In any case, don’t worry about it, just enjoy yourself.  This is the greatest party the BAU throws each year.”

“Not that’s saying a lot,” another man joined the conversation, passing a glass of wine to David.  “Malbec, like you requested.”

“Many thanks,” David tipped his glass.

“Aaron Hotchner,” the newcomer extended his hand out.  A strong grip—he made Camille think of her own boss, an alarmingly efficient man of few words, but when he spoke, nobody else dared to speak.  The connection made her uneasy.  It seemed like he picked up on her emotions, because he said a few welcoming words and left, looking at Spenser meaningfully and giving a small smile.  He looked like a completely different man when wearing a smile—almost like a broody but soft-shelled protagonist that you would like to talk with over a drink.

“I’ll leave you two lovebirds to wander about as well,” David followed Aaron away, flashing another smile at Camille.

“Aaron reminds me of my boss,” Camille whispered to Spencer once David was out of earshot.

“I think he is reminiscent of everybody’s boss,” Spencer whispered back.

“Spencer!  Is it too much for the BAU to invest in at least _one_ obtainable snack?  I swear, I petition for more plates every time, and it always falls on deaf ears!  More little puff pastries for everybody, that’s my rebellion against bureaucracy!  Oh, oh la la, who is _this_?” A portly woman stood in front of Camille, her face good-natured despite her complaints.  Camille described her as portly because Camille was determined to be polite even in her head.  Not that her size took away her charm or attraction, really—and Camille wasn’t even trying to be nice.  There was a certain magnet field around the woman, be it emitting from the oversized floral decorations in her hair, or the shocking contrast of bright blue and neon pink of her dress, or just the Julia Roberts smile that she gave to everybody.  “Well, _sir_ , aren’t you going to introduce me?”

“This,” Spencer gestured to Camille,” is my date, Camille.  And this lovely shock of a woman is Penelope.”

“Please to meet you,” Penelope also shook her hand, but it was a vigorous, energetic shake.  “Now I _know_ I should have brought my cat—I think I’m the only person here without a date!”

“I’ll be your date,” yet _another_ person dropped by.  “Will had to go home early, our babysitter called and bailed.”

Oh wow, Camille gulped, just _wow_.  How did any of the men get any work done around here?  The woman—blonde, slim, perfectly balanced features softened just enough by the big, blue doe-eyes and the round tip to her nose—she was just _beautiful_.  She smiled at Camille—a generic anchorwoman smile, different from the warm one she gave Penelope a moment ago, but Camille was willing to overlook that.  “Hello, you are,” she quickly looked at Penelope then Spencer, “Spence’s friend?” she said with a quarter uncertainty and a quarter surprise.

“Camille Koenig,” Camille reached out her hand.

“Jennifer Jareau,” the blonde woman took her hand for exactly two seconds of politeness, and then reached back to brush her waves away from her face.

Camille wished she could get _her_ hair to be so effortlessly luscious.

“So how do you know Spence?” Jennifer asked conversationally.

“Oh, we met at the grocers.”  Camille reached for his hand.

“That’s adorable,” Jennifer smiled genuinely, her teeth pearly with a subtle sheen not found with the frequent users of whitening strips.

“I know, right,” Camille said, while looking around to find the bar—she had the biggest girl-crush on Jennifer, and wanted her away from Spencer.  She didn’t like how Jennifer called him ‘Spence’ either.  It wasn’t even that much shorter.  “I’m going to get a drink, would any of you like one as well?”

Spencer jumped in, “I’ll go get it, what do you want?”

Camille shrugged, “Any red would be fine.”

“Actually,” Penelope said, “I’m more hungry than anything.  JJ, as my date, you are required to escort me in my quest to find anything that I can consume.”

“Sure,” Jennifer agreed amicably.

Penelope hooked her arm through Jennifer’s, and Camille thought that of all the behavioural sociologist/psychologists here, Penelope was the best.  Camille gave the retreating form of Penelope her best smile, and then hooped her own arm through Spencer’s as they weaved through the crowd towards the wine bar. 

But again, they could not be left alone.

“Hey pretty boy,” the man already sitting at the bar swung around and greeted them with a Mojito.  He had a smooth, dark skull, and a body of someone extremely dedicated to sit-ups.  When he smiled and his eyes crinkled like that, Camille could envision a different girl cooking him breakfast every Saturday and Sunday morning.  “Who’s the beautiful woman that you ensnared?”

All of Spencer’s team members were inordinately curious about Spencer’s pickup skills, it seemed like.

Spencer blushed and fidgeted, “I didn’t _ensnare_ her, Derek, I, she—”

“I came out of my own volition entirely, I assure you,” Camille interrupted, only a little irritated.  “What girl in her right mind would pass the chance to infiltrate James Bond’s headquarters?”

Derek laughed richly, his eyes crinkling in the corner, showing much use of his laughing lines.  “I wouldn’t say we’re James Bond exactly.”

“Oh I know,” Camille replied in a drawl, “Lack of the tight silver suit kind of killed it, I’m afraid to say.”

He smiled cheekily, “There are other attractions beside a suit here.”  Camille could tell that was meant to be about Spencer, but consciously or unconsciously, it was also in equal parts about himself.

“Yes, guns are sexy,” she gave him that.

“Said like a true Bond girl,” Derek grinned.

“But,” she paused for dramatic effect, “smart is the _new_ sexy, I’ll have you know.”

“Plenty of brains around these parts as well—you’re walking with the biggest of them.  Probably literally, given his IQ.”

“It’s not the size of the brain but the organizational structure of it, as we lesser mortals have begun to figure out,” she corrected him in a playful tone.  “There was some scientist who argued that dolphins, despite their brain size, are in fact dumber than goldfish.”

“Paul Manger,” Spencer nodded, “from University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.  He proposed that cetacean brains have their size because of the abundance of fatty glial cells.  It’s all speculation at this point.  What is interesting, though, is that the posthumous anatomical study of Albert Einstein's brain showed that he had a greater ratio of glial cells to neurons—”

“Whoa there, genius,” Derek laughed, “When did you get into biology?”

“Biology is just chemistry, says the chemist” Camille answered for him, “But all sciences are just mathematics when you boil down to it.”

“Let me guess, math major in college?”

Camille laughed, “No, thank god!  As much respect as I have for anybody who could understand the actions of semisimple Lie groups on differentiable manifolds, I have long come to terms with the fact that I just simply don’t have the eye for numbers.”

“That was a mouthful.  So what _did_ you study?  You sound like you know a little of everything.  And I only say ‘a little’ because you’re standing next to pretty boy over there.

“That was my best college roommate’s dissertation, and I’m afraid I’m a lawyer,” she answered.

“So it’s your job to look like you know everything, then,” he pursed his lips and nodded.

“Oh I know nothing—I’m pretty sure college was invented so we learn that—but knowing nothing is sort of a prerequisite for philosophy anyway, which was what I did in my younger, wilder days.”

“Young, wild days spent with old, bearded philosophers,” Derek looked unconvinced.

“Philosophers can be cute sometimes,” Camille argued, “in their whimsicality.  Take Anscombe: when she was defining her concept of intentional action, she used the metaphor of a plumber who has control over the poisoned water entering a house.  She then into this rambling description of how the man’s arm moves up and down, pulling muscles with Latin names.  I think she forgot herself and was rather into the mental image.”

Derek made a noncommittal humming sound at the same time that Spencer said, “That _is_ cute.”  Spencer cleared his throat and continued, “Worth noting that she actually pulled her pants off in public once, when told women weren’t allowed in pants.”

Camille smiled widely at Spencer.  He really should have absolutely no inferiority complex with Derek.

Derek cocked one eyebrow, but before he could say anything, somebody tapped their wineglass and the murmurs slowly buzzed away.

“Friends and friends of friends,” some irrelevant person began, delving into a long, boring speech about workplace camaraderie and complimenting them on their work.  Camille hated work-speeches—they tried so hard to be inspiring but always failed achingly.  She looked around, hoping to catch the silver glint of a hors d’oeuvres tray.  They had this sausage puff pastry that was really quite delicious.

“Still hungry?” Spencer leaned in and whispered.

Camille thought of Natalia’s didactic insistence to be ladylike, and laid a hand over the stomach of her dress, already stretching, and said, “I would say no just to deny you the pleasure of saying ‘I told you so’.”

“But you won’t, because it’s the truth.”

Camille smiled wryly, “My digestion always overworks when I’m in a socially anxious situation.”

“You’re anxious?”

“Wouldn’t you be?”

“I’ve been part of the team for so long that I’ve forgotten what it was like being introduced to strangers.”

“You don’t forget,” Camille deadpanned.

Spenser chuckled, “I don’t, no.  I just suppress it then, I suppose.”

“How long have you been here?”

“I started when I was twenty-two, so it’s been—”

“Twenty-two?” Camille said disbelievingly.  She was immediately shushed by those around her.

“You want to get out of here?” Spencer asked in a low whisper.

“Your boss wouldn’t mind?”

“Family is meant to be ditched for a date, I thought,” he joked.

Or at least Camille thought it was a joke.  It was hard to tell with Spencer looking so innocently serious.

They weaved through the crowd, profusely apologizing as quietly as they could, and ran through the hallway to the outside.  Camille was breathless when they reached his car, and realized how out of shape she was.  But it was exhilarating—the lace sleeve snagged on a door handle and she didn’t even care that her dress was ruined.  She had taken off her heels and her feet hurt even more from the uneven ground, but it was a pain of liberation.  Her hair had come down and must be a monstrosity to behold, but she liked how it tickled her shoulder blades and whipped in her face.  Spencer had her hand and she pressed it tightly enough to feel the throbbing pulse along his palm.  It felt like prom night, and they were playing hooky to lose their virginity in the backseat of his dad’s car.

Or some other crappy, clichéd thing that was alluded to in every other country song.

Spencer stopped in the parking lot but she ran ahead and he followed suit.  She climbed into the passenger seat when he unlocked the door from a few feet away.  When he dropped in as well, she declared, “I want Chinese takeout.  Like, the really disgustingly greasy kind with so-bad-it’s-funny fortune cookies.”

He looked surprised, but quickly acquiesced, “Okay,” he said, “I know just the place.”

And it _was_ disgusting, with oil dripping out of the corners of the boxes before they even took the food out of the plastic bag.  The smell of too much sugar and salt and MSG and everything bad immediately permeated the entire apartment, filling every nook and clinging to every wool sweater for at least a week.  And it was a nice apartment.  More spacious than Camille expected (she, who was still used to impossibly cramped Manhattan living quarters), and filled with idyllic avocado green walls, lit by warm lamps to appear more yellowish during the night.  All his furniture was a warm-toned medium brown, mostly leather and wood, matching his doorframe.  There was only one bookshelf in the living room—surprisingly, but Camille suspected that his bedroom was probably lined with them—and she tried to read the spines when Spencer excused himself.

A thick, Russian book by some Mikhail Gromov, the obligatory Marcel Proust, a few books of David Foster Wallace, a seemingly newer collection of Frederic Nietzsche, a Rosenbaum textbook, and a slim little thing that Camille pulled out because it said Spencer Reid: ‘ _Identifying non-obvious relationship factors using cluster weighted modeling and geographic regression_ ’.  She put it back with a face.

“It’s not my best work,” his voice sprang upon her.

She jumped a little and nearly stubbed her finger.  “Oh,” she said sheepishly, trying to think of an excuse for snooping around.

“I was rather distracted during that trimester in CalTech.  I was deciding between a Ph. D. program at the University of Chicago and joining the BAU.”

“And ultimately you chose justice over becoming the next Buster Bluth?”

“Buster?” he asked.

“Just some character in a TV show,” she waved.

“Sure,” he was still confused but decided to let it go.  He was probably going to look it up later.  She wouldn’t mind going on a binge TV marathon with him though.  “I got this,” he showcased the bottle in his hand to her.  “I remember that you like reds?”

She _did_ like reds.  Or rather, she liked reds more than whites and rosés.  It was a bottle of Pinot Noir—the safe choice when Cabernet seemed too thoughtless and conventional.  “Are you sure one is enough?” she asked slyly.

“I have another Grenache chilled in the fridge as well, if you prefer lower tannin.”

“I didn’t take you for a wine aficionado.”

He shrugged, “I have a very good memory.  I like learning about a lot of things.”

“Fair enough,” she said while scooping up the two wine glasses on the table.  “Classy and the gauche,” she gestured to the food, “very poignant juxtaposition here.”

“Poignancy is the high point of my dates.”

She laughed softly.  He had a wonderful sense of humor that was just self-deprecating enough.  She tipped her glass into her lingering smile—it was nice.  She usually didn’t have a palate for wine, but, well, maybe this wine went well with General Tso’s chicken.  Or maybe everything Spencer chose was just nice.

“Do you like it?  Is it okay?  I can get the Grenache if you don’t like it—or something else.  Beer, whiskey, really anything you want,” he rambled nervously.

“It tastes like pretty much every other wine that I’ve enjoyed drinking,” Camille answered honestly.

He looked both relieved and amused.

Camille would tell him to relax, but he was so adorable when he was nervous.  So she giggled and sat on the couch, and they watched a rerun of the first season of Matt Smith as the doctor.  They couldn’t eat much of the food—too much sensory overload—and Spencer binned the leftovers, both of them unable to bear the overwhelming smell.  The second bottle of wine lasted them quite a while though, and Camille could truthfully no longer taste what she was drinking when Spencer laughed at a joke that she had missed, and he looked over to make sure she was laughing as well, and she thought that he looked just so, so, utterly _lovable_ like that.  His face was outlined so distinctly in the lamplight, and it smoothed out the fine lines around his smiling eyes.  His hair was mussed just a little, and there was a cowlick to the right that she wanted to smooth, but his eyes were on her, and she couldn’t look away.  His eyelashes were turned downwards, and from this angle, the light hit it just so that his lashes drew long shadows over his eyes and almost to the edge of his long nose.

His eyes were like, she tried to think, were like, like Venus, in the far sky—or like the sparkling in a Tiffany counter—something poetic, but she couldn’t wrap her mind around it.

So naturally she assaulted him with a fervent kiss and fumbled around his already loosened tie.

**-.-.-**

She woke up with a man by her side.

Well, she was awake, but she kept her eyes closed and thought, _shit_.

Don’t get her wrong: the night was great—the sex was better than she expected, with the amount of fumbling during the foreplay.  But once they got to—

Ahem.  Right.  The problem—well, two problems.  One, she looked like Medusa beaten to a pulp by Heracles when she woke up; her breath smelled like a rotting piece of wood in a bog, and she couldn’t remember if she took off her makeup and if she didn’t her eyes would look like a domestic abuse victim (yes, those were _one_ problem).  Two, she probably shouldn’t have stayed.  The night.  Usually staying the night was after what, the fifth time having sex (itself a third date sort of thing), at least?  Or when there was a subtle-but-explicit offer.  Natalia would know better, despite having less sex—she was just _good_ with stuff like that.

Maybe Spencer wasn’t up yet, and she could sneak out and fix her face on the fire escape staircase.

“Usually people open their eyes after waking up,” he commented next to her.

_Shit_.  Again.  “Hmm,” she groaned, putting on an act of just gaining consciousness.    “What time is it?” she asked while putting her hand to her mouth as if covering a yawn.

“Seventeen to ten.”

“ _Shit_ ,” she cursed audibly.  Didn’t she promise her boss she’d get something done by noon today?  She couldn’t remember what it was, with the way her head felt when she sat up abruptly.  And the way her head felt was the way a spider probably felt after being violently smacked then swept away and flushed down a toilet.

“It’s Saturday,” he reminded her.

“Yeah, Saturday is just another day in the week to us,” she said grumpily, one reaching up to tame her hair.

“So um,” he cleared his throat, “You don’t have time for breakfast?”

“Uh,” her thoughts spun quickly, was that an invitation?  That was an invitation, right?  Did that mean that it was okay to stay the night?  Maybe she should stay a while?  But what if he was just being polite?  Even if he wasn’t just being polite, wouldn’t a classy lady be demure at first?  “Uh,” she tried again.

“Unless you have work,” he said when she hesitated.

“I mean, I don’t have to go in right _now_ ,” she said passively.

“”So…omelet?  Or do you prefer pancakes?  We can do French toast if you’re feeling adventurous.”

“French toast sounds nice.”

It was the second most awkward breakfast that Camille had ever experienced.  Camille wasn’t one for exaggerations, but the only other instance that had been more awkward was when her mother and she went to brunch and ran into her father with his mistress.  That in itself was fine, and really not that exceptional, except her mother was (more than) a little drunk at that point and dumped her Bloody Mary in the other woman’s lap.  The woman’s screams brought over a waiter, who discreetly slipped her a tampon because he thought it was her period blood staining her white dress.  And _then_ , just when it couldn’t possibly get worse, one of her father’s prominent friends showed up, the same friend whom her father had been buttering up in hopes of getting his season table at Frankie No’s place.  The friend mistook the mistress for Camille, and asked her how her law degree was going.  (Camille didn’t blame the man—her father always liked the sleepy-eyed, teenage-Twiggy look in his women.)  The mistress, Bloody Mary in her lap and a tampon in her hand, snarled out, “If I had a law degree I’d be suing you.”  Needless to say, her father, whose temper was always barely contained at best, did not make it a pleasant day, least of all to _her_.  Really, it was hardly her fault, she thought she was probably the most innocent party in this whole setup, but of course she was an easy target and her father never did anything hard.

“Is something wrong?” Spencer asked.

“No, no,” Camille said as she cut a corner of the toast and doused it in maple syrup, “it tastes great.”

“You haven’t eaten it yet,” Spencer pointed out.

Camille laughed breathlessly, stuffing a piece into her mouth and almost coughing it out due to the syrup running down her throat in the wrong way.

“Is everything alright?” Spencer asked again.

“Yeah, yeah, totally!  Of course!” Camille said as enthusiastically as she could, given that her throat was blocked with syrup.  Which, unfortunately, came out to sound choked and unconvincing.  She could almost _see_ the way Spencer was reading her every twitch, trying to decipher—oh, whatever he always deciphered.

“Was last night alright, then?” he continued asking.

“Oh,” she blushed, “Yeah, it was.  Everything’s alright—everything’s _great_.”

“Are you sure?”

Camille looked at Spencer—really _looked_ , because hitherto she had been distracted by her own mind to pay attention.  He was frowning just a little, and looked, well, worried.  That made _her_ worried.  “Why?  You aren’t sure that I’m sure?” she winced at she sounded like she was trying too hard to be cutesy.

He shook his head, “It’s nothing.”

“It’s never _nothing_ when you say it’s nothing.  There is no ‘nothing’ except to somebody who absolutely hates Descartes.”  Damn, she was _definitely_ trying too hard to be cutesy now.

He gave her a small smile, “You just looked… distraught.”

“Oh, I just remembered the last time that I had French toast,” she lied.  She didn’t have French toast that day—a salad niçoise was as many calories as she could eat in front of her mother—and it was more than five years ago.  But little white lies made the world run.

“Undoubtedly more professionally made than this,” Spencer said, gesturing to the soggy toasts that had too much egg batter.

Camille shrugged.  She didn’t want dwell on this topic.  “So me looking distraught made you distraught?”

Spencer looked away.

“I told you what was on _my_ mind,” Camille pushed, banking on that he wasn’t _that_ good at detecting half-truths.

“Not all of it,” Spencer answered, “I was just… I was trying to decide if you, uh, had a nice night.”

Oh.  Camille blinked.  _Oh_.  As soon as the realization dawned, she couldn’t help her snickers that turned into a laugh that wouldn’t stop.

Spencer looked _mortified_.

This might be on par with the awkwardness of the aforementioned brunch now, Camille thought, but infinitely more amusing.  “Oh Spencer,” she gasped out, “I _did_ have a ‘ _nice night’_ , as you put it.”

“The toast is going cold,” Spencer said simply.

She was glad she stayed the night—if only because she got to see such an adorably flustered Spencer.

Of course that was not the only thing that Camille got out of the morning after—as anyone who ever watched a modern romantic comedy knew, this specific time frame was fraught with danger: all sorts of misunderstandings, emotional breakdowns, foot in the mouth, et cetera, et cetera.  However, Camille and Spencer avoided all those traps; they instead slowly and tenderly eased into the day, ignoring all else for that weekend.  They shyly forged the commitment of a relationship and did not leave the house.  Lunch was delivered in and after a failed attempt to cook beef stroganoff (the kitchen stank like spoilt wine and the pot had to be discarded), so was dinner.  They did not want to go to sleep for they wanted to bask in this magical feeling for as long as possible, and they inevitably fell asleep over the covers, with the movie still running.

Monday found two wholly new persons, both individuals optimistic and sensitive, as if a peel of cynicism had shed magically overnight, revealing the flush, pink skin underneath that was the mark of a true romantic.  To a true romantic, marriage was not just for filing taxes and a house was more than sharing a mortgage—and they would get there, in time, both felt with surety.


	6. The Human Condition

**Chapter 7**

**The Human Condition**

_Hannah Arendt: “Without being bound to the fulfillment of promises, we would never be able to keep our identities; we would be condemned to wander helplessly and without direction in the darkness of each man's lonely heart.”_

 

What happened, though, after the romantic resolution?  The heroine and her destined love interest found each other and love—and then?  The Disney ending?  The Jane Austen ending?  The Julia Roberts ending?  The Hugh Grant ending?  The 90’s rom-com ending?

Well, let's see what happened, then, shall we?

 

**Exhibit A. The Disney ending**

And they lived happily ever after.

 

**Exhibit B. The _My Best Friend's Wedding_ ending**

Camille and Spencer got married two years later.  The wedding was understandably gorgeous.  And extravagant, because there was no other way for Camille's stepfather to try to show that he was part of the family and for Camille's father to one up his ex-wife, noticing her existence only after they separated.  They had a small family crisis just deciding where to host the wedding.  Her father insisted on the Koenig summer house in the Catskills that Camille had spent many childhood July fifth afternoon three to seven o’clock.  Her mother argued for Boston, where she moved to with the MIT professor she married and besides, her baby always liked oysters so obviously she had a natural affinity with the area.  Camille wanted a Hudson River Pier or DC waterfront thing because that was much more practical despite not being that economical.  In the end, they all compromised on the Long Island club where Camille's father met his third mistress (the one that his family never found out about), because Camille liked their white picket chairs (and that bartender who had floppy hair and a sweet smile even when she was awkwardly braced at thirteen).

Spencer's dad was shocked at how much money was thrown into the affair (it took _how much_ to book these white wooden chairs on a piece of lawn?).  He had been invited despite Spencer’s reluctance, because Camille said that a wedding was the best time for overblown emotions and forgiveness.  Spencer’s aunt also came, and the both of them were amazed at the casual extravagance that defined Camille's families and after the rehearsal dinner tried to warn Spencer against sinking into riches and not living to his fullest potential (Spencer smiled tightly, understanding the importance of keeping up an appearance of domestic bliss in front of the in-laws and so many guests; Camille made sure he understood).  Spencer's aunt, fulfilling her stand-in maternal duties, proceeded to the bar (which was such beautiful reddish wood, _mahogany_ maybe) to get a glass (Swarovski glasses!) of wine (some French or Italian thing—European in any case—recommended to her by the sommelier—a word she had just learned—who was a handsome young man in a suit that looked custom made).  Her glass soon turned into four (or five, it was hard to keep counting).  Spencer's father went to the other side of the bar, free from his sister’s scrutinizing gaze, and decided that it wasn't a bad place, not with all the skinny, blonde waitresses who were already desensitized to mild sexual harassment, not bad at all, even if the bartender had this snobby air and a suit too expensive for his station (and the boy's station was somebody _he_ hired so how dare the boy have a better branded suit!  He contributed to the wedding—not much, but that still made him the client here).

Camille's mother came here for a nightcap as well, running into her new to-be in-law and chatted with him the way one tolerated boorish relatives (didn't she tell the staff to get Turnbull bespoke suits? Why did the bartender still wear his tatty off the rack thing?).

The cheekbones dude who had made Camille cry outside of that bar, spurring the couple's first kiss—remember him?—was here as the date to one of Camille's distant relatives.  He came to the club a day early because it was his only chance to set foot on this kind of property.  He was aghast to see that the bride was the same desperate woman he had turned down once.  To marry into wealth—the last of the American dream, except for perhaps winning the Powerball lottery—oh how he had missed his chance!  He was determined to sabotage the wedding and swoop in when the bride was at her most vulnerable, tailing the bridal party group into their section of the club and being ushered in, mistaken as one of the strippers, being felt up by one of the girls (the brunette one, while the hot blonde sneered at the brunette) even after he explained that he wasn't some _male entertainer_.  Except the bride didn't fall for his charming grin or sharp wit or even the feel of his impeccably sculpted abs.  Bitch.

Natalia had a good time at the party the night before, but almost was late and had trouble finding the ring in her hangover.

Rosalie spent the night bleary eyed and making sure Natalia didn't choke on her own vomit.  The last time, Rosalie promised herself again as she pulled her curls into a tighter bun, the last time she would do this.

Elle wasn't there; she resented Camille for choosing the exact date she had to go to alimony negotiations, although Camille’s big day had been set before her divorce.

But the gorgeous wedding itself went off without a hitch.  Fifty friends and a hundred and fifty acquaintances plus another two hundred relatives, associates, coworkers, enemies, and other auxiliary characters gathered to witness the beginning of the Jane Austen ending.

 

**Exhibit C. The Jane Austen ending**

Camille and Spencer got married two years later.  They had two children in quick succession, a girl then a boy, and two and a half dogs.  Spencer liked the names Melanie and Carl, but Camille opposed the suggestion with great vehemence that she refused to explain.  Camille made partner at her firm eventually and Spencer, after taking a gunshot to the knee, retired to the role of a consultant profiler and stay-at-home husband, which would have pained his father had he been alive.  Spencer then had the liberty of learning anything and everything, and he found the pursuit of knowledge rewarding.  Camille also found her job rewarding, especially given that she was almost fired the second time she took maternity leave.  The marriage was exceptionally Disney by today's standards, and they were often teased in their circles for making the others look bad, Rosalie's joke that nobody except her laughed at when Natalia remained unattached and Elle divorced her husband when he got fired for snorting coke on the job.  Rosalie herself was also happily married, to an older woman with blue hair (a dyke, Elle had called her, which surprised Spencer because wasn't Elle the feminist one?), but their marriage was less socially convenient.  Camille and Spencer proceeded to live happily ever after, defying the inevitable fate of their race.

 

**Exhibit D. The _When Harry Met Sally…_ ending**

Camille and Spencer got married two years later but the actress Lila Archer divorced her hedge fund manager husband three years after that.  Lila still felt that Spencer belonged to her, although they only maintained a brief long-distance relationship that ended on a sour note.  With this sense of entitlement, she suggested a reunion, conveniently when Camille was away on a business trip.  Lila kissed Spencer after three drinks, and did Spencer kiss back?  That depended on if the movie was halfway or three quarters done.

 

**Exhibit E. _The Princess Bride_ ending**

Eventually, inevitably, one of Spencer’s cases turn into hers.  She recognized the killer that her firm was defending from one of Spencer’s worse stories.  At work, she slipped out that there was no point in the defense, and MacLeish was by the water cooler and overheard and told the boss.  Her firm changed their strategy to appealing to juries’ sympathy.  The killer got off slightly better than he should have.  Spenser shrugged and said that happened sometimes, but at least the woman was put away.  He seemed so jaded that Camille felt overwhelmingly guilty.  The manifestation of guilt was her recurring nightmares of this killer walking free and shooting Spencer.

The real world repercussion was that their boss thought Camille to be ruthlessly pragmatic, a trait that he liked, and took her as a protégé.  Something about the man made Camille uneasy though, and she frequently complained to Spencer about his behavior.

And not two years later, it was discovered that this boss, a major name in the business, had been kidnapping and holding hostage women since twenty years ago.  He kept them in an underground WWII bunker, creating a small cult, each woman representing a perfect part of the perfect ‘blonde beast’ woman, the ‘Eve’ with whom he will produce the master race.  When the BAU found his hideout (also inevitably, because Spencer already knew this man so well), the lawyer had already massacred half of the women and was in the process of killing his children when Spencer saved the day.  Spencer killed the man with a practiced bullet, but also took a bullet to his kneecap and a splinter of a bullet too close to his lungs that he would never fully recover from, wounds that impeded his future with the BAU.  He saved the day and retired to be a consultant to the BAU.

It would have been a heartwarming ending had it come twenty years later, when Spencer wasn’t still in his prime.

 

**Exhibit F. The _(500) Days of Summer_ ending**

Spencer had thought complete liberty would be freeing, and that he would enjoy it.  His knee still hurt and he was bad with physical therapy, but in a way, he knew this was going to happen—that he couldn’t stay the hotshot profiler forever.  He stayed at home with the four year old Bethany and two year old Hendrik, in the house that they mortgaged (a sensible financial decision, Camille had assured him, despite it being a typical house in the typical suburban Bethesda and their—her—bank account having enough zeros for purchase; something about tax deductions, which Camille figured out with their accountant).

Sometimes the largeness of the house confused him, despite knowing full well that it was two thousand square feet and three bedrooms.  They had planned to remodel the study into a spare guest bedroom, since eventually Bethany and Hendrik would fight for their own room.  Obviously that plan was put on hold since Spencer needed a room of his own.  He had been as involved as Camille in choosing this purchase five years ago, much more so than their wedding, which had greatly terrified him because he kept missing social cues.  He had spent more time in this house, given his jobs had always had more regular hours than Camille's.  Yet, feeling like a small boy wadding in the adult pool section, Spencer wondered how Camille was able to take care of the house.  She didn't do it by herself, of course—they had hired a nanny and then another one for the second baby (both of whom middle aged, avoiding the trope of the affair with the nanny) and had Mrs. Hughes come clean every other afternoon and more recently she had hired a gardener for the front lawn although they hardly needed one for a simple flowerbed and some hedges (the gardener was a good looking youth with the sort of rural face that made the suburban folk feel immediately superior and nicer than they usually were with each other; but they avoided the trope of the affair with the 'pool' boy as well).  Camille had, via supervision, kept her touch on every corner of the house.  And Spencer felt lost here, like he could hardly recognize this place he had lived in for the last five years.

In the room of his own, he studied economics like he had promised years ago.  Then he tried a more serious pursuit of programming.  He built an algorithm for trading that was quickly shut down because it broke some financial markets rule that he had not read up before.  He drifted from endeavor to endeavor like he had drifted from job to job.  He had it all—a loving wife who had not bored of him at the seven year relationship itch, could now explore his mind to its full potential, and the sort of kids that seemed to mean success in life to people of a certain circle.

The ennui kept nipping at his heels, but the ending was always happy, wasn't it?

 

**Exhibit G. The _Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind_ ending**

The expensive Dr. Faustus asked Camille if she was sure that Spencer loved her, in the way that she loved him— with the tone that suggested the question to be rhetorical.  Dr. Faustus said that Spencer was a high functioning sufferer of mild undiagnosed Asperger Syndrome, who used her mind, her body, her love as a vessel to facilitate his analysis of human emotions.  She was his post doc in psychology.

Camille switched therapists.

 

**Exhibit H. The _Love Actually_ ending**

When Camille was forty-one, she fell madly, irresponsibly, illogically in love with a young man of twenty-one, a potential intern that she interviewed but did not hire, who later politely emailed her for a coffee to talk about his interview skills.  It was a mundane request, and usually Camille was too busy for it, but she felt especially frustrated that day with a client and wanted to hear her voice without the echo of another's, so she said yes.

It was silly, but Jacob (the not-intern) accidentally brushed her hand when handing her the coffee, and they both froze a little—that was, static had shocked both of them, a commonplace occurrence due to the dry air and Jacob’s sweater, but it had seemed somehow symbolic.  A few coffees later, Jacob gently covered her back when escorting her out of the too-crowded coffee shop and Camille offered him a ride and they had their first tryst in the front seat of her Maserati.

Her new therapist said it was retribution for her husband's brief dalliance with the perfect blonde (Lila had gleefully informed her of it, and to be fair to the woman, nothing she said was false) and the redhead with the over-adjusted teeth.  Camille paid good money for her therapist but she knew it was just the obligatory mid-life crisis and if she hadn't found meaning and love in the Hollywood blue eyes of Jacob, she would have found it in somebody else.  But as it was, she felt like she had never before felt so much raw, rich emotion as the moment just before she touched Jacob.  Life tasted like ashes until she was with Jacob.  But Jacob was twenty-three and in love with being twenty-three on his Harley motorbike.

When Camille was forty-five, she had almost forgotten what Jacob looked like.

 

**Exhibit I. The _Sleepless in Seattle_ ending**

It was entirely by happenstance that Spencer met the red-haired Lilith.  Lilith was by all means a rather homely sort of woman, and to compensate for her homeliness, the clever Lilith had long mastered the art of interesting conversation—which could be summarized as asking people of their lives and doling out earnest compliments.  It was a wonder how far in life this carried her.

What happened was this: little Bethany had gotten lost on a field trip to the journalism museum (well, she claimed to be lost but was in truth just in the next room and she could faintly hear Rufus screaming and she hated Rufus).  Lilith was there to check out the Pulitzer photography wall, but, catching a glance of a lone little girl with both hands tugging the straps of her backpack, she flipped a coin and decided to go check if she was alright.  Bethany told her she was lost (Rufus was _still_ screaming) and asked her to call her dad so she wouldn’t have to go back to the group.  Spencer rushed over, terrified of failing at his paternal role, and thanked Lilith profusely.

Bethany said she was hungry and they went to a bistro for lunch.  Spencer, surprised by how nicely Bethany behaved around this woman with over exuberant braces (Lilith’s parents both suffered from irregular teeth, so she was subject to long term braces to atone for her parents’ genetics).  He asked for her number (in case they needed a babysitter, there was no love or chemistry at first sight, because yes, Lilith was that homely).  Bethany usually was a nightmare around any female presence not her mother—she had a natural suspicion of women, and neither Camille nor Spencer knew where she got this from, the two of them being sensible, trusting marriage partners—but Bethany was instinctively jealous and wary.  However, Bethany did not feel threatened by this Lilith, on account of her appearance (Bethany had thought ugly; she had an unexplained streak of meanness too) and her braces.  It would prove to be a mistake, as Bethany would later discover, three years later, when migrating data from her dad’s old phone into his new.  Bethany, barely adolescent, was suddenly thrown into a well-developed morally-complex drama.  It would be easy to blame Bethany’s exceptionally rebellious and troublesome teenage years on Spencer’s indiscretion, but you know that thing were never that simple.

In any case, never in their happy, stable marriage did Spencer once regret marrying Camille—to him, the idea of Camille being the other part of his life was so natural, so thoughtless that it seemed as given as the sun rising.  So the thought of leaving Camille never occurred to him.  It was, however, a thought that frequently occurred to Lilith.  Lilith didn’t understand her own infatuation with the man—he was old, not that handsome, socially awkward, and most of all he had no career and no money.  It was an extremely insensible match; she could do better, but she couldn’t stop pining for his touch anyhow.  After a few months, she brought up the idea of divorce in a carefully casual and very subtle manner.  Spencer was oblivious.  A few weeks after that, she brought the topic up again in an equally careful but less subtle manner.  Spencer was still oblivious.

After three years of that, Lilith got out, and Spencer missed her terribly for six months.

  
**Exhibit J. The _Annie Hall_ ending**

Instead of Jacob, there was Julius.

Camille was in New York on business and her flight was canceled in anticipation of the incoming snowstorm, which turned out to be a light dusting of white powder over the city.  There was little to do that bitterly cold evening (there was always plenty to do in NYC, but little she wanted to do); so on a whim, Camille attended an alumni social.  When she stepped into the room, she belatedly realized that she was interrupting a speech that some man was giving.  She felt awkward, so naturally she took a flute from the nearby waiter leaning against a table with a platter of wine, who turned out to not be a waiter but rather Julius, a professor of criminal psychology.  (It appeared that she had a type.)

Julius was an older man—although Camille herself was no spry spring chicken by then, she still felt small and innocent next to the wonderfully, cynically charismatic Professor Julius.  Born to and raised by two New Yorker parents, Julius rarely stepped off Manhattan island, and was bred to a neurosis that transcended above that of the everyman’s.  He was enigmatic and the right blend of casually abrasive and considerate.  They did not tumble into bed that night, for Julius understood the fine nuance of long-term seduction.  Instead, he persuaded Camille to email her assistant to change her flight to Monday, leaving him the weekend to reintroduce her to the city, which had, he claimed, completely changed and remained the same during her time away.  Camille of course knew how the city morphed, flying here regularly on business, but she agreed to the tour.  They chased the footsteps of the street artist Banksy (she used to be marginally artsy, before she had to be professional), slurped ramen in a tiny, cubicle-inspired shop (people hated cubicles in offices but stick them in a restaurant and oh the ingenuity!), waited for the ferry to Governor's island (she remembered when it used to be barren with only the occasional jazz age or indie music festival, how passé it was to visit and then how hip it was and then how clichéd it was again), drank in a relatively new speakeasy with deconstructed ceiling and vampiric waiters (her own favorite speakeasy had closed two years ago, but Camille had to admit that his was much cooler), found their way to Per Se (a late minute reservation that defied all known conventions of Michelin three stars, and although Camille always preferred the slightly over salted austerity of Eleven Madison).  Sunday they went to Chelsea and Julius introduced her to his friend, the gallery owner (they had certainly slept together in the past, their bodies turned towards each other in such a familiar way), ate seafood on stools in the middle of Chelsea Market (Camille couldn't remember the last time she enjoyed being near so many people, but she let Julius grab her hand to guide her), and again drank at a new dimly lit bar (this time a slam poetry spot that updated Camille's idea of slam poetry from college wannabes yelling non sequiturs and gulping Franzia to a quietly appreciative crowd of failed but talented poetry graduates in their middle age clapping at other failed but talented crinkled faces).   The entire weekend was _exhausting_ , the sort that Camille would have loved in her twenties, and still loved now though her body objected.

When Camille returned to her own life, she suffered acutely in longing for Julius and what didn't happen—the sex would have been great, she thought, better than the tepid vanilla routine that Spencer ticked off his weekly to do list, before heading off for Lila.  At last, her life was complete—she was feeling again, and being of the age one questioned why one never felt the sort of emotions that was promised (the middle age bliss, the middle age crisis), she rediscovered that pained, lonely yearning that seemed to be specially reserved for adolescence.

When she had another business trip, she flew into Julius's apartment (above a meatball shop, how quaint!), and she was right—the sex was great.  Yet it was the in between, the emotional suffering, that Camille relished the most.  She was never discovered, partially because she never made the effort to go to New York—never once did she fabricate meetings or even volunteer for trips, there never was an arrangement that wouldn't have happened even without Julius—but also partially because Spencer never looked.  The idea of an indiscretion was inconceivable.  They simply were not such a couple—they were strong, independent, intelligent, and refused to succumb to the malaise of their race.  (Lila didn’t count, they were both discreet.)

In a year, Camille’s true love Julius got engaged to a young girl of twenty and change—a Lilith, a former student of his.  He said nothing had to change, but Camille drew the line at hurting another innocent girl.  By that time, Spencer was drawing close his own indiscretion with Lila, and the two of them—Spencer and Camille, that was—rented a cabin in the woods and fell fervently in love with each other in the absence of their lovers.

 

**Exhibit J. The _Knocked Up_ ending**

There was talk of a divorce, but there were no affairs on either side—never even a touch even though there were plenty of moments of weakness or wavering.  They went through couple consoling—thousands of dollars of consoling—and just when they were drafting an agreement, their daughter Bethany got pregnant and didn't know who the father was.  You see, even without Lila and Lilith, Jacob or Julius, Bethany still grew into troublesome puberty; and Camille and Spencer still wondered sometimes if they were somehow responsible for inflicting upon their sole daughter precocious concepts without realizing it.

However, in the face of this shared emergency, the family united in the grapple and the talk of divorce was swept under the rug.  (You would call it ironic, but the term needed to be handled carefully because you were sure at least one person would cry with outrage that ‘this isn’t ironic!’.)

 

**Exhibit X. The ending of all endings**

Eventually, Camille and Spencer died, respectively, and their ashes (you know they would be the sensible sort not to take up valuable land property after their deaths) were kept together. 

 

Of course, public exhibits were rarely representative of fact, so often distorted by entertainment value and popular media, as Spencer would have been the first to point out.

So what happened, you ask?  A mixture of various elements from the above exhibits, probably.

Which ones?  Well how should I know, the story is yours, isn't it?


End file.
